NATURAL FARMING

A low-input, high-yield, nature-healing way of growing food.

Chinmay Soman
SCALE AND COMPLEXITY

Energy is captured most efficiently on the smallest scale

Complex biological systems are stable and productive
Chinmay Soman
TOWARDS ‘NATURAL’

A natural farm

Is a complex, self-regulating, designed ecosystem.

Contains a large variety of interdependent plants, animals, insects, birds

and microorganisms

Requires no chemical inputs and minimal physical intervention

Utilizes and enriches local natural resources

Produces high yields with minimal inputs

Chinmay Soman
ORIGINS
Natural Farming
Masanobu Fukuoka
Japanese plant pathologist
“How about not doing this?
How about not doing that?”
Developed during 1945-1975

Permaculture
Bill Mollison
Australian naturalist
Design “food forests” with
interacting components
Developed during the ‘70s

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NATURAL FARMING
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 and the land
has become dependent on them.

-Masanobu Fukuoka, in ‘The One Straw Revolution’

No Tilling No Fertilizers No Sowing No Pesticides

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NO TILLING
Saves labor, energy, and time
Prevents nutrient leeching and
soil erosion
Reduced CO2 and NOx emissions
Weeds can’t take hold

Soil is loosened, aerated and

mixed by organisms
Permanent ground cover
improves soil quality
Heavy equipment is avoided -
the soil stays loose naturally

Chinmay Soman
NUTRIENT REPLENISHMENT

Conventional farming
continuously removes
nutrients from the soil

Permanent ground cover of

white clover fixes nitrogen
All organic matter is returned
to the field to decompose
naturally (no active
composting)
Animal and bird manure is
used as a supplement

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BROADCAST SEEDING
Sowing protects seeds from
birds etc.

Cover crop and straw

provide protection - seeds
can be simply broadcast by
hand on the field
For extra protection, seeds
can be enclosed in ‘Seed
Balls’. (Red clay, compost,
seeds, water)

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CONTROL LIFE WITH LIFE

Monoculture has many unoccupied niches

where weeds and insects thrive
Insecticides kill natural predators, opening
up more opportunities for insect
population explosion

The variety of plants (including a few

weeds) promote predator and food
diversity
The absence of toxins enables natural
predators to exist, and control insect
population
Ground cover and straw hold weeds in
check
Fungal infections are rare in the healthy
ecosystem

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OTHER TECHNIQUES

Summer rice/Winter wheat

system
Crop rotation to further
replenish soil nutrients

No pruning of fruit trees

Orchards also have
leguminous ground cover
Vegetables and shrubs
under trees

Chinmay Soman
PERFORMANCE

Fukuoka consistently got yields equal or better than those on

chemical farms.
Natural farming has been adapted and practiced successfully
in various regions, including the temperate zone and the
tropics.
Due to the extremely low labor and capital requirements,
profitability is much higher than conventional farming.

Chinmay Soman
PERMACULTURE

Permaculture design is a method of assembling conceptual,

material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions
to benefit life in all its forms.

Each component should function in many ways, and serve the

needs and accept the products of other components.

The mature system should require the least possible maintenance,

and should produce a net surplus of energy over its lifetime.

- Bill Mollison, paraphrased from ‘Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual’

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DESIGN PRINCIPLES

Goals Cycles

Observation Connections

Resources Diversity

Patterns Stability

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UTILIZING RESOURCES

Small earthworks to trap and

store water
Fertility is in the biomass, not
in the soil
‘Weed’ plants continuously
mulched to provide nutrients
A variety of plants to occupy
all niches and harvest
maximum sunlight
Small animals control pests,
provide fertilizers, and produce
extra food

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OCCUPYING ALL NICHES

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THE ZONE SYSTEM

0 The Home 1 Vegetables Garden

2 Orchard, Beehives 3 Commercial Crop
4 Semi Wild, Foraging 5 Wilderness

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PERFORMANCE

Has been demonstrated in all climates

Increasingly popular sustainable land use method

Permaculture Centers are being established all over the

world to train more people

Academic and quantitative reports are required

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WHY STILL UNPOPULAR?

Inertia

Commercial force behind input-heavy traditional methods

Eschews reductionism - not popular academically

Requires experimentation to optimize for local conditions

Non-control

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Perhaps we cannot raise the winds. But each
of us can put up the sail, so that when the
wind comes we can catch it.

E. F. Schumacher
Small Is Beautiful

Chinmay Soman
CREDITS
Chinmay Soman has created this
presentation in iWork ’09, and released
it under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
3.0 Unported License. This means that
you are free to use and adapt
components of this presentation for
noncommercial purposes, but are
required to release resulting work with a
similar license, as well as attribute the
components used to this author. The
original work is available by request.
For more resources and current
information, visit the blog at
sustainable-farming.blogspot.com
Chinmay Soman
The following people created the
Creative Commons licensed photos/
graphics used in this presentation:
Slide 1: Permaculture Research Institute,
DreamingKayaker
Slide 2: Hideyuki Kamon, Andrea Bellamy, Youthkee
Slide 3: Gene Wilburn, IRRI, Björn Hermans, Autan
Slide 5: Permaculture Research Institute
Slide 7: Ecoagriculture Partners
Slide 8: Hideyuki Kamon, Kasper Manz
Slide 9: Andrea Bellamy
Slide 10: Parrhesiastes, Jeff DelViscio, Youthkee,
Stavros Markopoulos
Slide 11: DreamingKayaker
Slide 14: Permaculture Research Institute
Slide 15: Graham Burnett (via Wikimedia Commons)
Slide 16: Cecilia Macaulay