Shumei Natural Agriculture: Improving Soil Health and Resilience

Shumei Natural Agriculture Improving Soil Health and Resilience Shinya Imahashi Yatesbury Natural Agriculture Farmer

Meet Shinya Imahashi For more than 22 years, Shinya Imahashi has been practicing Shumei Natural Agriculture, a means of cultivating wholesome food with pure seeds and without the use of any fertilizers, chemicals or additives. More than an approach to farming, Natural Agriculture is a way of living in harmony with nature. Shinya first started practicing in 2002 before moving to England in 2005. Starting with a small allotment outside London, Shinya moved to Harlow in Essex, and since 2010, he has been practising Natural Agriculture in Yatesbury. The Yatesbury Farm has organic certification with the Soil Association, but there are certain aspects of Natural Agriculture that set the Yatesbury Farm apart from other organic farms in the UK, such as the practice of continuous cropping. Shinya regularly advises farmers throughout Europe and has an active YouTube channel with more than 4K subscribers. He has been a speaker at the Oxford Real Farming Conference and has been featured on BBC Radio. YouTube: Shumei Natural Agriculture Farm UK Website: https://shumei.uk/yatesbury

How Natural Agriculture helps improve soil health and microbial activities

Continuous Cropping Instead of crop rotation, Natural Agriculture farmers will plant the same crop in the same field year after year.

Soil learns and remembers how to grow the plants and specializes in it.

This is a side by side photo of the potato field and the uncultivated plot next to it at the Yatesbury farm. We practice continuous cropping, growing potatoes on the same piece of land year over year. To understand how the soil health was impacted, Shumei compared the soil health of the potato field and the untouched grass field next to it. The following slides show the Soil Health Index report of the Potato field and the Grass field from 2014 and 2019. Potato Grass

Soil Chemistry Analysis- Organic Matter, pH, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sulphur, etc. Soil Health Index Microbial Activity Soil Textural Classification

2014 Soil Chemical Analysis Microbial Activity Soil Health Index

2014 This index is measured by respiration rate. CO2 evolution is directly related to soil respiration, a general measure of biological activity, indicating microbial biomass, carbon sequestration and nitrogen mineralization rates. Microbial Activity

2014 Microbial Activity

2014 The Soil Health Index: The foundation for this index is the rate of evolution of CO2 following standardised drying and wetting of the soil. Adjustments to the CO2 evolution index are made, relative to other soil parameters, in order to compare different soils from different locations. Soil Health Index

2014 Soil Health Index

2019 2014

2014 2019 Results The Soil Microbial Activity in the potato field increased from 2.7 (moderate) to 4.5 (high) between 2014 and 2019. Similarly, the overall Soil Health Index increased from 3.1(moderate) to 5.1(very high) demonstrating the soil was not depleted even after continuous cultivation for 5 years.

Seeds become purer every year Seed Saving Seeds will adapt to the soil and the environment in your area You can grow healthier and stronger vegetables

Saving Seeds

Our Seed Bank We produce 40 variety of veg 90 saved seeds success

Chard 12 generation seeds

Leek 8 generation seeds

Potatoes produced by 12 generation seeds

Courgette 11 generation seeds

Cherry Tomatoes 12 generations

Parsnips 10 generation seeds

Tomatoes 17 generations

Thank You Email: yatesburyi@shumei.eu Website: https://shumei.uk/yatesbury/ Find us on YouTube and Instagram @ShumeiYatesbury