The One-Straw Revolution

by Masanobu Fukuoka

Fukuoka tells us that truly successful agriculture requires not so much arduous labor as awareness, observation, connection, and persistence.

This book is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical. It is an inspiring, necessary book about agriculture because it is not just about agriculture.

natural farming proceeds from the spiritual health

of the individual. He considers the healing of the land and the purification of the human spirit to be one process,

I found myself face to face with the fear of death. As I think about it now, it seems a useless fear, but at the time, I took it seriously.

When you get right down to it, there are few agricultural practices that are really necessary. The reason that man’s improved techniques seem to be necessary is that the natural balance has been so badly upset beforehand by those same techniques that the land has become dependent on them.

Human beings with their tampering do something wrong, leave the damage unrepaired, and when the adverse results accumulate, work with all their might to correct them. When the corrective actions appear to be successful, they come to view these measures as splendid accomplishments. People do this over and over again. It is as if a fool were to stomp on and break the tiles of his roof. Then when it starts to rain and the ceiling begins to rot away, he hastily climbs up to mend the damage, rejoicing in the end that he has accomplished a miraculous solution.

Methods of insect control which ignore the relationships among the insects themselves are truly useless.

Ultimately, it is not the growing technique which is the most important factor, but rather the state of mind of the farmer.

I have made a lot of mistakes while experimenting over the years and have experienced failures of all kinds. I probably know more about what can go wrong growing agricultural crops than anyone else in Japan.

It appears that things go better when the farmer applies “scientific” techniques, but this does not mean that science must come to the rescue because the natural fertility is inherently insufficient. It means that rescue is necessary because the natural fertility has been destroyed.

When a decision is made to cope with the symptoms of a problem, it is generally assumed that the corrective measures will solve the problem itself. They seldom do. Engineers cannot seem to get this through their heads. These countermeasures are all based on too narrow a definition of what is wrong.

But if you ask how important it is for human beings to have this fruit a month earlier, the truth is that it is not important at all, and money is not the only price paid for such indulgence.

until the general sense of values changes, the situation will not improve.

It seems to me that the greater one’s desires, the more one has to work to satisfy them.

If we do have a food crisis it will not be caused by the insufficiency of nature’s productive power, but by the extravagance of human desire.

Extravagance of desire is the fundamental cause which has led the world into its present predicament.

Material life and diet should be given a simple place. If this is done, work becomes pleasant, and spiritual breathing space becomes plentiful.

A life of small-scale farming may appear to be primitive, but in living such a life, it becomes possible to contemplate the Great Way.

To break experience in half and call one side physical and the other spiritual is narrowing and confusing.

I do not particularly like the word “work.” Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think this is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is.

When the individual is able to enter a world in which the two aspects of yin and yang return to their original unity, the mission of these symbols comes to an end.

If you expect a bright world on the other side of the tunnel, the darkness of the tunnel lasts all the longer. When you no longer want to eat something tasty, you can taste the real flavor of whatever you are eating. It is easy to lay out the simple foods of a natural diet on the dining table, but those who can truly enjoy such a feast are few.