Ingenious: EM technology

With his discovery of effective microorganisms (EM), the Japanese professor Teruo Higa paved the way back in the 1980s for solving environmental and health problems in an entirely natural way.

While searching for alternative cultivation methods that would be less harmful to people, a chance discovery put him on the trail of microorganisms.

He noticed that diseased watermelon plants began to sprout again after they had been thrown into a ditch with kitchen waste. To this day Higa describes this observation as the turning point in his academic work, because it led him to suspect that microorganisms in our environment, especially in the soil, are immensely important for such processes.

From then on, in his research at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Higa concentrated on microorganisms and experimented with various strains of yeasts and photosynthetic bacteria. When Higa was able to celebrate his first reproducible results with a mixture of more than 80 different microorganisms, he quickly recognised the significance of his discovery for the whole world.

The principle of effective microorganisms:

According to the dominance principle, a few strains of organisms determine whether predominantly regenerative (building-up) or degenerative (breaking-down) processes take place in a given environment. The neutral organisms always join the larger or dominant group. In a diseased environment, the putrefying microorganisms predominate, and according to the dominance principle they are supported by the neutral microorganisms. By deliberately adding constructive strains, the environment can be steered towards regeneration and growth.

Prof. Higa’s declared goal is pesticide-free agriculture, for the benefit of nature and people.