[compost_tea] Cultivating the Harvest II Trade Show for Bitty and BobO

From: Herb and Merla Barberie <herbnmerla_at_supersat2.net>
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 09:32:52 -0800

PS Merla Barberie presented All About Compost TEA at
"Cultivating Harvest Two at Coeur d' Alene Idaho this week end.
Merla made an all out effort to change the world to Organic . Can
you tell us how it went? Is the world convinced? All of us thank
you and Herb for your dedicated effort to promote Organic ! Bob

* * * * *

Sorry I'm so late answering this, but I'm behind on my emails including
the AACT list/serve.

The two bnbrew teamakers were on nice wooden boxes I got at Michael's,
one at each end in front of the table. I had the name of each brewer
and a brief blurb about them on the 5 gallon bucket in the case of the
Bitti and on the wall next to the BobO. I really had to negotiate with
the Trade Show coordinator to let me run the Bitti even with just
water. She was so worried about the rug at the Coeur d'Alene Inn, but I
spilled narry a drop on Friday and when I asked if I could make real
AACT, I got a thumbs up. In the big morning meeting, I announced that
I was going to do this during the Saturday noon break, but only a few
people showed up to witness the actual process. But a lot of people,
especially everybody who had a little kid in tow had to stop at the
Bitti and watch the action. It's really important to actually run the
machine and ask people if they know what's going on in there. I hope
just the sight of the Bitti and BobO and the SFI micrographs will remain
in their memories.

I had Bob's brochures on the table, the Compost Tea Manual, the Soil
Biology Primer, three CDS from SFI--the Introduction to the Soil Food
Web, Crop Production and Compost Foodweb, the ACRES issue with Elaine's
picture on it, a small b&w pic of Bob with two BobOs in a 500 gal tank
from Ray's pic site on MSN to show people who Bob is. I had promotion
material from Mycorrhizal Applications, Inc., something off the net from
the BLM on microorganisms in the soil, my final report from Rapid
Lightning Non-Chemical Weed Control Project, Science in Agriculture by
Arden Anderson and Weeds by Charles Walters. I had color pics of
beneficial nematodes and fungi, etc. from SFI Gallery. Many people took
the free literature on the teamakers and took a good look at the table,
but there's a link missing. Nobody knows about the existence of
bacteria, beneficial fungi, beneficial nematodes, and protozoa. Maybe I
needed a huge pictorial display of only microorganims. But where could
I get such a thing and how afford to have them printed on a really good
color/photo copy machine?

This conference was sponsored by Rural Roots and was billed as a small
farm conference, not as an organic conference. Rural Roots encompasses
both groups. They had a wide range of courses--herb growing,
permaculture, holistic management of pastures, but their main focus is
PR using "Locally Grown." They are developing a logo and had a man
named Michael Shulman who was an expert on marketing and had an
excellent presentation. If only they had had Elaine there for AACT.
Many of the presenters were members of Rural Roots and probably spoke
for free or for a low stipend. Very few of the Sandpoint Farmers Market
certified organic growers were there. Was it because they couldn't
afford the regular application fee and were too proud to ask for low
income status? Did they think Rural Roots was stuffy or the agenda was
too rudimentary? Did they have family responsibilities? They certainly
don't plan large conferences. Rural Roots and the university/extension
service do and probably on grant money. And they particularly asked me
to show my compost teamaker so they must have plugged in somewhere to
AACT. Maybe some of them are on this list/serve.

I was looking forward to the presentations on soil building as a impetus
for people to know what my table was all about. I'm sure it helped a
little bit, but hardly anybody had a background in actively aerobic
compost tea. The first speaker was a graduate student at Washington
State University with a canned video with a few good pictures from the
WSU archives who was doing research on Bio-Dynamics from the standpoint
of their microorganism content. She didn't explain terms like VAM fungi
and Rhizobia and I'm sure people didn't have a good enough background
for her talk. She just didn't explain things like Elaine does with lots
of slides so you can really get a grasp of the whole subject. She said
in her talk that microorganisms are naturally in the soil and that
people selling them are cheating you. The next speaker was a professor
at WSU, a young woman who was an excellent speaker who primarily showed
slides of her rather large small-farm operation which she does by
herself with the help of a lot of equipment. She showed beautiful rows
of vegetables with cover crops inbetween the rows--no bare soil
showing. She must have had lots of organisms, but she didn't say
anything about CT. The last speaker was a Bio-Dynamic practitioner who
is into radionics and makes field broadcasters. His talk was mainly on
the spiritual, energetic basis of Bio-Dynamics. He hardly got into any
specifics about the preparations and their microbial aspects.

What was needed at that conference was a good speaker on behalf of SFI's
work and AACT in general and the basics on microorganism diversity,
testing of teas, tuning compost and tea to particular ecosystems/crops,
etc. etc. and some basic free handouts on this. If they could have just
heard the three CDs I had on the table. Hardly anyone cracked the cover
of my copies of the Compost Tea Manual or the Soil Biology Primer and
although I had a sign offering to play the CDs for anyone interested, no
one asked. They just weren't far enough along to recognize the value of
them. Just two people who talked to me said they were in the market for
a compost teamaker and one of those mentioned Soil Soup. The other had
heard Elaine speak in Spokane. I went all out with these two people I
was so excited by their interest. I wish Rural Roots or somebody who
has grant money for a conference would ask Elaine to be the main
presenter. I suggested it in my evaluation. I tried to write a grant
application from the Sandpoint Farmers Market to get money for something
like that, but it didn't get off the ground. In Idaho, conferences like
this tend to be ingrown from lack of funding. Even the state organic
director wistfully said, "I need to get informed about this."

So, people, try to get to be presenters on composting for microorganisms
and using AACT at your area conferences and give out free basic
literature based on this list/serve and SFI materials. Have good
websites that will rate high on a web search using the words "compost
tea and include pages on soil critters and how to make good compost and
have lots of working links to the International Compost Tea Council,
SFI, etc. The Soil Soup and Growing Solutions websites are always on
the first page of a search because they have put a lot of energy on
looking professional while catering to home growers.

Best,

Merla


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Received on Mon Nov 17 2003 - 14:08:21 EST

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