UK products and various research (not just UK)

First some info on EM products in the UK, then some other things I found which may be useful for people not in the UK also.

http://www.em-naturally-active.com/ actually sells EMRO (Teruo Higa's) EM culture (Effective Microorganisms™), not SCD EM culture (Efficient Microbes™) as somebody had mentioned previously (//www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=117732). For some reason they don't mention this at all on their whole website, but at the very end of their pdf brochure they do. Also they use the green symbol with the seven circles (slightly modified, without letters) which is owned by EMRO.

"EM AROUND THE WORLD" "The EM Naturally Active concept and range of products is part of a worldwide research organisation (EMRO)..."
http://promoties.mediatech.be/promo/em-natuurlijk-uk/HuisEnTuinBrochENweb(2).pdf

The brochure is linked from this page:
http://www.em-naturally-active.com/Uk/index.htm

Here are the logos with the seven green circles:
http://www.em-naturally-active.com/
http://www.emtechnologynetwork.org/~en/_web/letters/notice041904.html

Here are some UK dealers with websites which all get their products from em-naturally-active (others don't seem to have websites but their addresses are on the website):
http://www.em-naturally-active.com/Uk/dealers.asp
http://www.recycleworks.co.uk/
http://www.rootrainers.co.uk/
http://www.spectrumwellbeing.co.uk/
http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/

And another UK EMRO website:
http://www.effectivemicro-organisms.co.uk/

http://www.livingsoil.co.uk/ does sell SCD EM culture, but they absolutely don't mention it anywhere on their website either. They use a slightly modified version of SCD's "em inside" green logo. And there is a file on SCD's website which explains it.

"SCD Partners with Living Soil to Distribute in the United Kingdom" "The agreement provides Living Soil with exclusive purchasing rights to SCD's product lines in England and Ireland."
http://www.scdworld.com/releases/livingsoil.pdf

That file is linked from here (list of international partners):
http://www.scdworld.com/shop/deliver.cfm?page=existing

Here are the "em inside" logos:
http://www.livingsoil.co.uk/products/em_liquid.html
http://www.scdworld.com/shop/deliver.cfm?page=eminside

There are also similar products from a Danish company called Biosa, basically the same stuff (plus herbs added to the fermentation) just not called "EM" (as "EM" are all trademarks). Biosa also sells in many other countries.

Here is the Biosa Ltd UK website (they have Terra Biosa, Vita Biosa, Animal Biosa):
http://www.biosa.co.uk/

This other online store sells Vita Biosa:
http://www.vitabiosa-shop.com/

And Biosa Denmark which has more information:
http://www.biosa.dk/engelsk/index_uk.html

I have realized that all these companies seem to like hiding information so that people can't do research and compare products sold by other companies and so just buy the products from them. I took me hard work simply just to learn which companies these products come from.

SCD does not exactly hide EMRO EM products but they actually use EMRO EM products to market their own products! For example they market both EM-X and Xtra-EM as if they were both the same (might be) but they don't clarify that EM-X is EMRO's. So if you google "EM-X" and somehow get the link below, you read about both but Living Soil doesn't even sell EM-X only Xtra-EM, which you end up buying instead.
http://www.livingsoil.co.uk/learning/freeradical.htm

And then there's the products which use the term "soil-based microorganisms", although there's this website (which someone here linked) which uses the trademark sign when refering to them in the product they sell:
http://www.yourhealthright.com/healthright/paul_yanick_sbo_update.html

I don't know if that website is correct on their use of the trademark sign, but everything® is copyrighted nowadays, so that it makes it very hard talking neutrally about things.

I am also starting to learn that there are other products which seem to be basically the same or at least very similar but which do not market their products in the same way, which did not get as much exposure and which are mostly directed towards agriculture. But that's how EM™ started (for agriculture) and I think maybe similar results can be obtained for humans, it's just maybe that people have not tried these particular products for these other purpuses yet.

They go by names like "compost maker", "compost activator", "compost accelerator", "microbial soil conditioner", "microbial inoculants" and many others.

See this product called Organica Microbial Soil Conditioner (granular) for example:
http://www.organica-uk.co.uk/Agriculture_products/microbial_soil_conditioner.htm
http://www.organica.net/consumer4stepmsc.asp

"A unique microbial inoculant designed to enhance soil biology and improve plant health" "Safe to use around children and pets." "Active Ingredients: A proprietary formulation consisting of 47 strains of beneficial soil microbes, fulvic acid, essential amino acids, vitamins, and sugars."

And their other product Organica Compost Accelerator/Activator (dry or liquid):
http://www.organica-uk.co.uk/Agriculture_products/compost_accelerator.htm
http://www.organica.net/consumerCompostActivate.asp

"Active Ingredients: A synergistic blend of multiple strains of micro organisms specifically cultured for the rapid composting of organic and vegetative waste."

And then there's "compost tea" (not a product) which is widely known and used in agriculture and which some people believe it's even superior to EM cultures (at least for plants) because of the much larger variety of organisms.

Some believe that consumption of compost tea is dangerous but I did find some references of people drinking it:

"The bacteria we are attempting to culture should not be harmful in the human gut. And of course there are some brave friends, in Australia especially, whom are drinking compost tea and swear by its health effects."
http://www.mail-archive.com/bdnow@envirolink.org/msg02483.html

"I know people who drink compost tea everyday, but they are very careful about the compost they use. I know people who bathe in compost tea, but they wash their hands before eating anything."
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/compostteas/Week-of-Mon-20020617/000210.html

Also see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compost_tea

And it appears that the main difference between EM and compost tea is that most (but not all) compost tea is fermented aerobacally and doesn't have a long shelf life (has to be used very quickly):

"For decades now the Japanese have been using anaerobic microbial brews to gain the same results claimed for aerobic teas. EM is the most reliable and effective of the Asian microbial brews."
http://www.ibiblio.org/biodynamics/index.html

I don't know if EM is better. I do know that it is a product and that you have to keep buying the mother culture forever everytime the last one you bought runs out. And it's not available everywhere. I still don't know exactly how the mother cultures sold by EMRO, SCD, Biosa, etc are made. I don't think they want you to learn how to fish, they want you to BUY their fish.

I think that EM may be simply a very carefully controlled anaerobic compost tea. I have learned that many compost tea brewers believe anaerobic compost teas (aka fermented compost teas) are dangerous (and maybe they can be if you don't brew them the right way), but there are many who seem to use them well with their plants:

"I don't have many plant diseases, and no more than a tolerable amount of insect pests. My plants seem to like the [anaerobic] tea, so I'll keep using it."
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/soil/msg060750294789.html?7

The ones who don't approve of the anaerobic tea believe that only pathogenic bacteria survive anaerobic fermentation, but then you learn that EM is an anaerobic fermentation, so it may be that they may not have even tried making anaerobic tea because of that assumption or maybe they had a bad experience with a brew that was not prepared in the right way.

Some names which I have gathered:
Teruo Higa - EM (Effective Microorganisms™), EMRO founder
Kobayashi - wastewater treatment with bacteria, he inspired Higa according to Wood
Mokichi Okada - was the father of Kyusei Nature Farming, Higa got involved with it
Matthew Wood - EM (Efficient Microbes™), SCD founder, former student of Higa
Vinny Pinto - EM researcher and consultant, has books and used to sell EM brews
Elaine Ingham - soil microbiologist, has books on soil biology and compost tea

Mokichi Okada was also the founder of the Church of World Messianity but Higa/EMRO is not involved with it. The Mokichi Okada Association/Foundation (founded after he died, I think) uses and helps to spread the use of EM in many countries.

A couple of Yahoo groups which may be useful:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/EM-health/
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/compost_tea/

Vinny Pinto runs the EM-health group and also has a website which offers a lot of information but he admits that he does not give all of the information on his website (you would have to pay for a consultation with him or buy one of his books for extra information). He also does business with SCD and seems a bit biased (his website has quite a bit of SCD advertising). Still a good source of EM information though.
http://www.eminfo.info/

From his website:
"And, quite frankly, some information does not belong in full public view; it is better given only to those who can really use it and who are committed to the work at hand. Several other EM specialists and I have had to make the decision to stop sharing advanced nformation on the public e-mail list groups because it invariably simply leads to chaos and trouble for many of the readers."
http://www.eminfo.info/ebooks-etc.html