More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The One-Straw Revolution we received as an empowering testament to one person’s courage to reject the common wisdom that laboratory, narrowly profit-driven science was the salvation of farming. Instead, Fukuoka taught that the best methods of food cultivation are those aligned with nature, which on a practical level means minimal soil disruption (no tilling or weeding) and no application of chemicals (be they fertilizers or pesticides).
Nature can do the work we have unnecessarily taken on ourselves, so what Fukuoka terms “natural farming” is less labor intensive. Successful farming is about realizing more leisure in which to experience the richest of relationships, about living in ways that are “gentle and easy.” We can enjoy “sitting back” and even being “lazy,” writes Fukuoka.
Japanese farmers of a bygone era left Haiku they’d composed during their three months of winter leisure.
our fixation on control over nature has led us to assume visual order—the straight, weeded rows of uniform fields—is superior farming. If something appears random, we assume it’s wrong. It doesn’t match our learned aesthetic.
“do-nothing” also refers to the stance that common sense is apt to take in response to expert authority: “‘How about not doing this? How about not doing that?’—that was my way of thinking.” This is the instructive contrariness of children and certain old people, who rightly distrust the “sophistication” that goes ahead without asking “What for?”
“Nature as grasped by scientific knowledge,” he says, “is a nature which has been destroyed; it is a ghost possessing a skeleton, but no soul.”
Mr. Fukuoka’s is a science that begins and ends in reverence—in awareness that the human grasp necessarily diminishes whatever it holds.
When I first heard stories about Mr. Fukuoka, I was skeptical. How could it be possible to grow high-yielding crops of rice and winter grains each year simply by scattering seed onto the surface of an unplowed field?
Strictly speaking, the only “natural” farming is hunting and gathering. Raising agricultural crops is a cultural innovation which requires knowledge and persistent effort.
The Japanese, mugi, translated as “winter grain,” includes wheat, rye, and barley.
the world has become so specialized that it has become impossible for people to grasp anything in its entirety.
There are always those who try to mix natural and scientific farming. But this way of thinking completely misses the point. The farmer who moves toward compromise can no longer criticize science at the fundamental level.
Why is it impossible to know nature? That which is conceived to be nature is only the idea of nature arising in each person’s mind. The ones who see true nature are infants. They see without thinking, straight and clear.
The sensible approach to disease and insect control is to grow sturdy crops in a healthy environment.
Twenty years ago, when I was encouraging the use of permanent ground cover in fruit orchards, there was not a blade of grass to be seen in fields or orchards anywhere in the country. Seeing orchards such as mine, people came to understand that fruit trees could grow quite well among the weeds and grasses. Today orchards covered with grasses are common throughout Japan and those without grass cover have become rare.
Ultimately, it is not the growing technique which is the most important factor, but rather the state of mind of the farmer.
White clover is sown about one pound per quarter acre, winter grains 6 1/2 to 13 pounds per quarter acre. For inexperienced farmers or fields with hard or poor soil, it is safer to sow more seed in the beginning.
When I went to visit the testing a few years ago, I found that the fields had been divided into those using shredded straw, uncut straw, and no straw at all. This is exactly what I did for a long time and since the uncut works best, it is uncut straw that I use.
With this variety I believe I will one day be able to reap a harvest close to the greatest theoretically obtainable from the solar energy reaching the field.
To allow a fruit tree to follow its natural form from the beginning is best. The tree will bear fruit every year and there is no need to prune.
It goes without saying that soil improvement is the fundamental concern of orchard management.
The method of growing vegetables for the kitchen table in old Japan blended well with the natural pattern of life. Children play under fruit trees in the backyard. Pigs eat scraps from the kitchen and root around in the soil. Dogs bark and play and the farmer sows seeds in the rich earth. Worms and insects grow up with the vegetables, chickens peck at the worms and lay eggs for the children to eat.
The important thing is knowing the right time to plant. For the spring vegetables the right time is when the winter weeds are dying back and just before the summer weeds have sprouted.
If sown a bit heavily, Japanese radish, turnips, and various leafy green autumn vegetables will be strong enough to compete successfully with the winter and early spring weeds. A few always go unharvested, reseeding themselves year after year. They have a unique flavor and make very interesting eating.
As for the cucumbers, the creeping-on-the-ground variety is best. You have to take care of the young plants, occasionally cutting the weeds, but after that, the plants will grow strong. Lay out bamboo, or the branches of a tree and the cucumbers will twine all over them. The branches keep the fruit just above the ground so that it does not rot. This method of growing cucumbers also works for melons and squash.
Before researchers become researchers they should become philosophers.
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. Human measures and countermeasures proceed from limited scientific truth and judgment. A true solution can never come about in this way.
The farmer would do much better by growing the food he needs without thinking about making money. If you plant one grain of rice, it becomes more than one thousand grains. One row of turnips makes enough pickles for the entire winter. If you follow this line of thought, you will have enough to eat, more than enough, without struggling. But if you decide to try to make money instead, you get on board the profit wagon, and it runs away with you.
No matter how hard people try, they cannot improve upon naturally grown fruits and vegetables.
Daikon (Japanese radish) has for its ancestor the plant called nazuna (shepherd’s purse), and this word nazuna is related to the word nagomu, which means to be softened. Daikon is the “herb that softens one’s disposition.”
The more out of balance one’s body becomes, the more one comes to desire unnatural foods.
After the War, between 70% and 80% of the people in Japan were farmers. This quickly changed to 50%, then 30%, 20%, and now the figure stands at around 14%. It is the intention of the Ministry of Agriculture to achieve the same level as in Europe and America, keeping less than 10% of the people as farmers and discouraging the rest. In my opinion, if 100% of the people were farming it would be ideal.
There is just a quarter-acre of arable land for each person in Japan. If each single person were given one quarter-acre, that is 1 1/4 acres to a family of five, that would be more than enough land to support the family for the whole year. If natural farming were practiced, a farmer would also have plenty of time for leisure and social activities within the village community. I think this is the most direct path toward making this country a happy, pleasant land.
At the end of the year the one-acre farmer of long ago spent January, February, and March hunting rabbits in the hills. Though he was called a poor peasant, he still had this kind of freedom. The New Year’s holiday lasted about three months. Gradually this vacation came to be shortened to two months, one month, and now New Year’s has come to be a three-day holiday.
There is no time in modern agriculture for a farmer to write a poem or compose a song.
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.
It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time. I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life.
They understand that to become firmly rooted means to live from the yields of their own land. A community that cannot manage to produce its own food will not last long.
Modern industrial farming desires heaven’s wisdom, without grasping its meaning, and at the same time wants to make use of nature.
Pure natural farming, by contrast, is the no-stroke school. It goes nowhere and seeks no victory. Putting “doing nothing” into practice is the one thing the farmer should strive to accomplish. Lao Tzu spoke of non-active nature, and I think that if he were a farmer he would certainly practice natural farming. I believe that Gandhi’s way, a methodless method, acting with a non-winning, non-opposing state of mind, is akin to natural farming. When it is understood that one loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them, the essence of natural farming will be realized. The ultimate goal of
...more
I deny the empty image of nature as created by the human intellect, and clearly distinguish it from nature itself as experienced by non-discriminating understanding.
Nature as grasped by scientific knowledge is a nature which has been destroyed; it is a ghost possessing a skeleton, but no soul.
As temporary expedients or as directional markers they could be acknowledged as valuable, I said, but they should not be considered as the highest achievements. Scientific truths and philosophies are concepts of the relative world, and there they hold true and their value is recognized.
Non-discriminating knowledge arises without conscious effort on the part of the individual when experience is accepted as it is, without interpretation by the intellect.
Even though I speak of non-intentional action and non-method, wisdom acquired over time in the course of daily life is, of course, acknowledged.
Nutritious foods, good for the human body, whet the appetite and are delicious on their own account. Proper nourishment is inseparable from good flavor.
FOOLISHNESS COMES OUT LOOKING SMART
Right up through college people study diligently to learn why they were born. Scholars and philosophers, even if they ruin their lives in the attempt, say they will be satisfied to understand this one thing. Originally human beings had no purpose. Now, dreaming up some purpose or other, they struggle away trying to find the meaning of life.
Cultivate a flooded rice field with a plow or tractor and the soil becomes deficient in oxygen, the soil structure is broken down, earthworms and other small animals are destroyed, and the earth becomes hard and lifeless. Once this happens, the field must be turned every year.
I have demonstrated in my fields that natural farming produces harvests comparable to those of modern scientific agriculture. If the results of a nonactive agriculture are comparable to those of science, at a fraction of the investment in labor and resources, then where is the benefit of scientific technology?
