About

Large-scale manure bokashi — Making large-scale manure bokashi on a farm in Missouri. 3/17/2022

Bokashi Research and Education focuses on the research, development, and education of all things bokashi.

A generic Japanese term, bokashi means fermented organic matter. A complex mixture of multiple strains of beneficial microorganisms stimulates the fermentation. Bokashi has been promoted as a means to recycle food waste. However, it is much, much more, going from the very small to very large scale applications. Bokashi Research and Education designs and implements projects to demonstrate bokashi's efficacy. Educational materials are then based on these and other implementations.

Bokashi is a technique for applying microorganisms and recycling organics in order to build living soil. Bokashi Research and Education further develops bokashi through research on various topics, from the microbial components to their applications and effects. With this research, Bokashi Research and Education creates programs to teach and spread the information to expand the study and its impact on the world. These efforts may also expand to the municipal and governmental levels with programs for recycling food and green waste from homes, office buildings, schools, stores, and more.

For more on terminologies and definitions, see the Bokashi Glossary.

Co-founders

Eric Lancaster

Substack: Probiotics Heal the World — probioticshealtheworld.substack.com

For 40 years, Eric has worked for small and large enterprises. Before starting his probiotics company, he sold cutlery, conducted energy audits, and sold home renovation projects. He was trained in French cooking and worked as a sous chef at a restaurant on Cape Cod and a garde manger at the Ritz-Carlton in Palm Beach, Florida.

Eric helped start EM America in 2005, which became TeraGanix, Inc. in 2010. Teraganix, Inc. marketed and developed Effective Microorganisms® in the United States until 2021, when it was sold. During his tenure at TeraGanix, Inc., Eric wrote over 3,400 blog articles, three separate websites with 300 to 680 pages of information, published 50 articles in gardening magazines, managed over 50 research projects using probiotics in crops and livestock, and worked on the development of 14 core products, including Dr. Don’s Oral Rinse and Toothpowder and Pro EM•1 Probiotic. He also created and wrote the manufacturing and sales manuals for each product. Over his twenty-five years working with EM Technology, he became an expert in the technology. He has consulted on projects on six continents using these probiotics, from animal to human to soil health.

Today, Eric consults on regenerative agriculture projects, biofertilizers, and biostimulants. In 2023, he was instrumental in helping one of his clients win a USDA grant to produce a US-based alternative fertilizer for farmers in the USA (bokashi for agriculture). He also published his first book, Probiotic Oral Health, and writes weekly articles on Substack: Probiotics Heal the World.

Shig Matsukawa

bokashi.nyc, recyclefoodwaste.org

Shig has been studying and applying bokashi and EM (Effective Microorganisms)—used in bokashi and other gardening and environmental applications—since 1993. He has been a volunteer educator on bokashi composting (recyclefoodwaste.org) since 2009. Based in NYC, Shig provides workshops to community gardens and schools throughout the city. He is involved with El Sol Brillante community garden (522 E 12th St elsolbrillante.org), Down to Earth Garden (546 E 12th St downtoearthgarden.org), steering committee member of Vamos A Sembrar community garden (198 Ave B vamosasembrar.org), member of the East Side Outside Community Garden (415 E 11th St eastsideoutsidegarden.org), advisor to Earth Matter NY (earthmatter.org), on the board of LUNGS (Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens, lungsnyc.org), and on the steering committee of EEAC (Environmental Education Advisory Council of NYC, eeac-nyc.org).

El Sol Brillante and Down to Earth Garden have had a combined bokashi composting system since the end of 2009. Their bokashi process can be viewed here: downtoearthgarden.org/bokashi-process.