The One-Straw Revolution

by Masanobu Fukuoka

As for the consumer, the common belief has been that natural food should be expensive. If it is not expensive, people suspect that it is not natural food. One retailer remarked to me that no one would buy natural produce unless it is priced high. I still feel that natural food should be sold more cheaply than any other. Several years ago I was asked to send the honey gathered in the citrus orchard and the eggs laid by the hens on the mountain to a natural food store in Tokyo. When I found out that the merchant was selling them at extravagant prices, I was furious. I knew that a merchant who would take advantage of his customers in that way would also mix my rice with other rice to increase the weight, and that it, too, would reach the consumer at an unfair price. I immediately stopped all shipments to that store. 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. If natural food is to become widely popular, it must be available locally at a reasonable price. If the consumer will only adjust to the idea that low prices do not mean that the food is not natural, then everyone will begin thinking in the right direction.

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.