The One-Straw Revolution

by Masanobu Fukuoka

When the specialist decides to take his own advice, and begins to do as he says, he breaks down the walls of his specialization.

“When it is understood that one loses joy and happiness in the effort to possess them, the essence of natural farming will be realized.”

We do not live by bread alone.

Strictly speaking, the only “natural” farming is hunting and gathering. Raising agricultural crops is a cultural innovation which requires knowledge and persistent effort.

To disrupt nature and then to abandon her is harmful and irresponsible.

This translation has been a communal effort by the student workers on the mountain.

I believe that a revolution can begin from this one strand of straw.

I do not worry about sowing the weeds—they reseed themselves quite easily.

“Humanity knows nothing at all. There is no intrinsic value in anything, and every action is a futile, meaningless effort.”

I had acted in the belief that everything should be left to take its natural course, but I found that if you apply this way of thinking all at once, before long things do not go so well. This is abandonment, not “natural farming.”

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.

Doctors and medicine become necessary when people create a sickly environment. Formal schooling has no intrinsic value, but becomes necessary when humanity creates a condition in which one must become “educated” to get along.

To the extent that trees deviate from their natural form, pruning and insect extermination become necessary; to the extent that human society separates itself from a life close to nature, schooling becomes necessary. In nature, formal schooling has no function.

to remake nature entirely for the benefit of human beings.

Natural farming is gentle and easy and indicates a return to the source of farming.

An object seen in isolation from the whole is not the real thing.

The spectacle is an amazing natural drama. Seeing this, you understand that poets and artists will also have to join in the gathering.

Anyone who will come and see these fields and accept their testimony, will feel deep misgivings over the question of whether or not humans know nature, and of whether or not nature can be known within the confines of human understanding.

The irony is that science has served only to show how small human knowledge is.

Nature, left alone, is in perfect balance.

The fertility of nature, as it is, is beyond reach of the imagination.

The fact of the matter is that by using these chemicals, people have unwittingly brought about the conditions in which this unfounded fear may become reality.

Natural farming takes a distinctive form in accordance with the unique conditions of the area in which it is applied.

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

But until natural food can be distributed locally, the average farmer will worry about not having a market in which to sell his produce.

If a high price is charged for natural food, it means that the merchant is taking excessive profits. Furthermore, if natural foods are expensive, they become luxury foods and only rich people are able to afford them.

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

We have been born and are living on the earth to face directly the reality of living.

The world exists in such a way that if people will set aside their human will and be guided instead by nature there is no reason to expect to starve.

No matter how the harvest will turn out, whether or not there will be enough food to eat, in simply sowing seed and caring tenderly for plants under nature’s guidance there is joy.

Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think this is the most ridiculous thing in the world.

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.

It proceeds from the conviction that if the individual temporarily abandons human will and so allows himself to be guided by nature, nature responds by providing everything.

Just playing or doing nothing at all, children are happy. A discriminating adult, on the other hand, decides what will make him happy, and when these conditions are met he feels satisfied.