THE NATURAL WAY OF FARMING The Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy MASANOBU FUKUOKA atural Way of Farming The Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy Masanobu fukuok: Preface Natural farming is based on a nature free of human meddling and intervention. It strives to restore nature from the destruction wrought by human knowledge and action, and to resurrect ahumanity divorced from God. While still a youth, a certain tum of events set me out on the proud and lonely road ‘back to nature, With sadness, though, I leamed that one person cannot live alone. One either lives in association with people or in communion with nature. I found also, to mydespair, that people were no longer truly human, and nature no longer truly natural. The noble road that rises above the world of relativity was too steep for me. ‘These writings are the record of one farmer who for fifty years has wandered about in search of nature. I have traveled a long way, yet as night falls there remains stil a long way to go Of course, in a sense, natural farming will never be perfected. It will not see general application in its true form, and will serve only as a brake to slow the mad onslaught of scientific agriculture Ever since I began proposing a way of farming in step with nature, I have sought to demonstrate the validity of five major principles: no tillage, no fertilizer, no pesticides, no weeding, and no pruning. During the many years that have elapsed since, I have never once doubted the possibilities of a natural way of farming that renounces alt human knowledge and intervention. To the scientist convinced that nature can be understood and used through the human intellect and action, natural farming is a special case and has no universality. Yet these basic principles apply everywhere ‘The trees and grasses release seeds that fall to the ground, there to germinate and grow into new plants. The seeds sown by nature are not so weak as to grow only in plowed fields. Plants have always grown by direct seeding, without tillage. The soil in the fields is worked by small animals and roots, and enriched by green manure plants Only over the last fifty years or so have chemical fertilizers become thought of as indispensable, True, the ancient practice of using manure and compost does help speed yp growth, but this also depletes the land from which the organic material in the mmpost is taken Even organic farming, which everyone is making such a big fuss over lately, is just another type of scientific farming. A lot of trouble is taken to move organic materials first Here then there, to process and treat. But any gains to be had from all this activity are local and temporal gains. In fact, when examined from a broader perspective, many such efforts to protect the natural ecology are actually destructive Although @ thousand diseases attack plants in the fields and forests, nature strikes a balance, there never was any need for pesticides. Man grew confused when he identified these diseases as insect damage, he created with his own hands the need for labor and toil Man tries also to control weeds, but nature does not arbitrarily call one plant a weed and try to eradicate it. Nor does a fruit tree always grow more vigorously and bear more fruit when pruned. A tree grows best in its natural habit, the branches do not tangle, sunlight falls on every leaf, and the tree bears fully each year, not only in alternate years. Many people are worried today over the drying out of arable lands and the loss of vegetation throughout the world, but there is no doubting that human civilization and the misguided methods of crop cultivation that arose from man’s arrogance are largely responsible for this global plight Overgrazing by large animal herds kept by nomadic peoples has reduced the variety of vegetation, denuding the land. Agricultural societies too, with the shift to modemagriculture and its heavy reliance on petroleum-based chemi problem of rapid debilitation of the land. s, have had to confront the Once we accept that nature has been harmed by human knowledge and action, and renounce these instruments of chaos and destruction, nature will recover its ability to nurture all forms of life. In a sense, my path to natural farming is a frst step toward the restoration of nature. ‘That natural farming has yet to gain wide acceptance shows just how mortally nature has been afflicted by man’s tampering and the extent to which the human spirit has been ravaged and ruined. All of which makes the mission of natural farming that much more tical I have begun thinking that the natural farming experience may be of some help, however small, in revegetating the world and stabilizing food supply. Although some will call the idea outlandish, I propose that the seeds of certain plants be sown aver the deserts in clay pellets to help green these barren lands. These pellets can be prepared by first mixing the seeds of green manure trees —such as black wattle—that grow in areas with an annual rainfall of less than 2 inches, and the seeds of clover, alfalfa, bur clover, and other types of green manure, with grain and vegetable seeds. The mixture of seeds is coated first with a layer of soil, then one of clay, to form microbe-containing clay pellets. These finished pellets could then be scattered by hand over the deserts and savannahs Once scattered, the seeds within the hard clay pellets will not sprout until rain has fallen and conditions are just right for germination, Nor will they be eaten by mice and birds. A year later, several of the plants will survive, giving a clue as to whet is suited to the climate and land. In certain countries to the south, there are reported to be plants that grow on racks and trees that store water. Anything will do, as long as we get the deserts ‘blanketed rapidly with a green cover of grass. This will bring back the rains While standing in an American desert, I suddenly realized that rain does not fall from the heavens, it issues forth from the ground, Deserts do not form becanse there is no rain, rather, rain ceases to fall because the vegetation has disappeared. Building a dam in the desert is an attempt to treat the symptoms of the disease, but is not a strategy for increasing rainfall. First we have to leam how to restore the ancient forests But we do not have time to launch a scientific study to determine why the deserts are spreading in the first place. Even were we to try, we would find that no matter how far ‘back into the past we go in search of causes, these causes are preceded by other causes in an endless chain of interwoven events and factors that is beyond man’s powers of comprehension. Suppose that man were able in this way to leam which plant had been the first to die off in a land tumed to desert. He would still not know enough to decide whether to begin by planting the first type of vegetation to disappear or the last to survive. The reason is simple: in nature, there is no cause and effect. Science rarely looks to microorganisms for an understanding of large causal relationships. True, the perishing of vegetation may have triggered a drought, but the plants may have died as a result of the action of some microorganism. However, botanists are not to be bothered with microorganisms as these lie outside their field of interest We've gathered together such a diverse collection of specialists that we've lost sight ofboth the starting line and the finish line. That is why I believe that the only effective approach we can take to revegetating barren land is to leave things largely up to nature One gram of soil on my farm contains about 100 million nitrogen-fixing bacteria and other soil-enriching microbes. I feel that soil containing seeds and these microorganisms could be the spark that restores the deserts. Ihave created, together with the insects in my fields, a new strain of rice I call “Happy Hill.” This is a hardy strain with the blood of wild variants in it, yet it is also one of the highest yielding strains of rice in the world. If a single head of Happy Hill were sent across the sea to a country where food is scarce and there sown over a ten-square-yard area, a single grain would yield 5,000 grains in one year’s time. There would be grain enough to sow ahhalf-acre the following year, fifty acres two years hence, and 7,000 acres in the fourth year. This could become the seed rice for an entire nation. This handful of grain could open up the road to independence for a starving people But the seed rice must be delivered as soon as possible. Even one person can begin. I could be no happier than if my humble experience with natural farming were to be used toward this end My greatest fear today is that of nature being made the plaything of the human intellect. There is also the danger that man will attempt to protect nature through the medium of human knowledge, without noticing that nature can be restored only by abandoning our preoccupation with knowledge and action that has driven it to the wall All begins by relinquishing human knowledge Although perhaps just the empty dream of a farmer wio has sought in vain to return to nature and the side of God, I wish to become the sower of seed. Nothing would give me more joy than to meet others of the same mind. Introduction Anyone Can Bea Quarter-Acre Farmer In this hilltop orchard overlooking the Inland Sea stand several mud-walled huts. Here, young people from the cities—some from other lands—live a crude, simple life growing crops. They live self-sufficiently on a diet of brown rice and vegetables, without electricity or running water. These young fugitives, disaffected with the cities or religion, tread through my fields clad only in a loincloth. The search for the bluebird of happiness ‘brings them to my farm in one comer of lyo-shi in Ehime Prefecture, where they leam how to become quarter-acre farmers Chickens run free through the orchard and semi-wild vegetables grow in the clover among the trees. In the paddy fields spread out below on the Dogo Plain, one no longer sees the pastoral green of barley and the blossoms of rape and clover from another age. Instead, desolate fields lie fallow, the crumbling bundles of straw portraying the chaos of modem farming practices and the confusion in the hearts of farmers