The One-Straw Revolution

by Masanobu Fukuoka

the earth but of our fear-clutched psyches as well. —FRANCES MOORE LAPPÉ Preface Readers who expect this to be a book only about farming will be surprised to find that it is also a book about diet, about health, about cultural values, about the limits of human knowledge. Others, led to it by hearsay of its philosophy, will be surprised to find it full of practical knowhow about growing rice and winter grain, citrus fruit, and garden vegetables on a Japanese farm. It is exactly because of such habitual expectations—because we have learned to expect people to be specialists and books to have only one subject—that we are in need of The One-Straw Revolution. 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. Knowledgeable readers will be aware that Mr. Fukuoka's techniques

people who limit themselves to a simple local diet need do less work and use less land than those with an appetite for luxury.

Many of these young people travel to India, or to France's Gandhi Village, spend time on a kibbutz in Israel, or visit communes in the mountains and deserts of the American West.

In this world there exist four main classifications of diet: (1) A lax diet conforming to habitual desires and taste preferences. People following this diet sway back and forth erratically in response to whims and fancies. This diet could be called self-indulgent, empty eating. (2) The standard nutritional diet of most people, proceeding from biological conclusions. Nutritious foods are eaten for the purpose of maintaining the life of the body. It could be called materialist, scientific eating. (3) The diet based on spiritual principles and idealistic philosophy. Limiting foods, aiming toward compression, most "natural" diets fall into this category. This could be called the diet of principle. (4) The natural diet, following the will of heaven. Discarding all human knowledge, this diet could be called the diet of non-discrimination. People first draw away from the empty diet which is the source of countless diseases. Next, becoming disenchanted with the scientific diet, which merely attempts to maintain biological life, many proceed to a diet of principle. Finally, transcending this, one arrives at the non-discriminating diet of the natural person.