Sustainable Agriculture

Dedicated to the late Masanobu Fukuoka, author of One Straw Revolution and father of the Zen of agriculture.

 福岡 正信
2 February 1913 – 16 August 2008

“If a single new bud is snipped off a fruit tree with a pair of scissors, that may bring about a disorder which cannot be undone…. Human beings with their tampering do something wrong, leave the damage unrepaired, and when the adverse results accumulate, work with all their might to correct them.”

“To become one with nature — agriculture is an occupation in which a farmer adapts himself to nature. To do that, you have to gaze at a rice plant and listen to the words from the plant. If you understand what the rice says, you just adjust your heart to that of the rice plants and raise them. In reality, we do not have to raise them. They will grow. We just serve nature. A piece of advice I need to give you here.  When I say gaze at a rice plant or stare at its true form, it does not mean to make an observation or to contemplate the rice plant, which makes it an object different from yourself. It is very difficult to explain in words. In a sense, it is important that you become the rice plant. Just as you, as the subject of gazing, have to disappear. If you do not understand what you should do or what I am talking about, you should be absorbed in taking care of the rice without looking aside. If you could work wholeheartedly without yourself, that is enough. Giving up your ego is the shortest way to unification with nature.”

Masanobu Fukuoka

http://www.fukuokafarmingol.net

Summary of Fukuoka-sensei’s Method

Fukuoka’s farming technique requires no machines, no chemicals and very little weeding.  The soil is not plowed and no prepared compost is used and yet the condition of the soil improves each year. The method creates no pollution and uses no machinery. The Fukuoka method requires less labor than any other, yet the yields in his orchard and fields compare favorably with the most productive Japanese farms which use all the technical know-how of modern science. . . truly the Zen of gardening.