by Masanobu Fukuoka
Masanobu Fukuoka (1913–2008) was born and raised on the Japanese island of Shikoku. He was the oldest son of a rice farmer who was also the local mayor. Fukuoka studied plant pathology and worked for three years as a produce inspector in the customs office in Yokohama. But in 1938 he returned to his village home determined to put his ideas about natural farming into practice. During World War II, he worked for the Japanese government as a researcher on food production, managing to avoid military service until the final few months of the war. After the war, he returned to Shikoku to devote himself wholeheartedly to farming. And in 1975, distressed by the effects of Japan’s post-war modernization, Fukuoka wrote The One-Straw Revolution. In his later years, Fukuoka was involved with several projects to reduce desertification throughout the world. He remained an active farmer until well into his eighties, and continued to give lectures until only a few years before his death at the age of ninety-five. Fukuoka is also the author of The Natural Way of Farming and The Road Back to Nature. In 1988 he received the Magsaysay Award for Public Service.
Website: https://f-masanobu.jp/en/
Source: https://www.bol.com/nl/nl/f/the-one-straw-revolution/36666131/
Call it “Zen and the Art of Farming” or a “Little Green Book,” Masanobu Fukuoka’s manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book “is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical. It is an inspiring, necessary book about agriculture because it is not just about agriculture.”
Trained as a scientist, Fukuoka rejected both modern agribusiness and centuries of agricultural practice, deciding instead that the best forms of cultivation mirror nature’s own laws. Over the next three decades he perfected his so-called “do-nothing” technique: commonsense, sustainable practices that all but eliminate the use of pesticides, fertilizer, tillage, and perhaps most significantly, wasteful effort.
Whether you’re a guerrilla gardener or a kitchen gardener, dedicated to slow food or simply looking to live a healthier life, you will find something here—you may even be moved to start a revolution of your own
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About the author
Source: https://f-masanobu.jp/en/about-masanobu-fukuoka/
Masanobu Fukuoka was born on February 2nd, 1913 in Minami-yamasaki Village, Iyo District, Ehime Prefecture (present-day Iyo City). After graduating from the Applied Biology Department of present-day Gifu University, he worked in the Plant Inspection Division of the Yokohama Customs Bureau and devoted himself to research. However, as a result of being brought to the brink of death by acute pneumonia, he experienced an epiphany that “there is nothing in this world.”
He returned to his home prefecture of Ehime and began to shape the Masanobu Fukuoka method of natural farming, which is characterized by “no tilling, no use of compost, and no weeding,” while embracing nature through agriculture. In addition, he received global praise for his method of preventing desertification by placing plant seeds in mud and creating seed balls during his many travels to various places around the world. He was an agricultural philosopher who exerted himself to preaching the state of “nothing” through many publications, song-verses, and drawings.
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Book Review: The One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukouka
This book was recommended to me by so many people. I purchased a copy last year but didn’t make the time to read it. While reading Mansoor Khan’s “The third curve“, I noticed that he has mentioned this book in his list of recommendations. That was the “last straw” for me to pick up this brilliant book, which I managed to finish it in 3 days.
I’m starting to believe this statement – “When the reader is ready, the book appears.“
Coming to this book, Masanobu Fukuoka talks about the perils of modern agriculture and why return to “do-nothing” / natural farming is the need of the hour. Simplistic, easy to relate, hard-hitting and brilliant writing that I was totally hooked onto this book for the past 3 days. Having been reading up about food and nutrition for the past 7 years, it is a natural transition for me to invest efforts in understanding where and how our food comes from.
The author starts off with talking about his personal experiences in transitioning to natural farming, growing rice, clover and other grains in his farm. He diligently follows four principles of farming – no cultivation (no plowing of the soil), no chemical fertilizer or prepared compost, no weeding by using herbicides and no dependence on chemicals. For someone with no exposure to farming like me, the chapters that elaborate on these principles would be fascinating to read.
The second half of the book emphasizes a lot about living in harmony with nature, growing crops according to the season and eating habits that focus on eating simple, local and wholesome foods. The questions the author keeps raising throughout the book related to food, industrial growth, ambition, education, sustainability etc are so impactful that your mind expands to see new horizons.
Here are a few passages from the book that I liked:
“The consumer’s willingness to pay high prices for food produced out of season has also contributed to the increased usage of artificial growing methods and chemicals”
“Until there is a reversal of the sense of values which cares more for size and appearance than for quality, there will be no solving the problem of food pollution.”
“Produce grown in an unnatural way satisfies people’s fleeting desires but weakens the human body and alters the body chemistry so that is dependent upon such foods.”
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The foreign travels of Fukuoka
He was keen on visiting Africa, he writes, because he had “a great dream of revegetating the deserts and turning these into lands rich in food with natural farming”
