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I started natural farming after the war with just one small plot, but gradually I acquired additional acreage by taking over surrounding pieces of abandoned land and caring for them by hand.

Masanobu Fukuoka

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Masanobu Fukuoka
Age: 93 †
Born: 1914
Born: February 2
Died: 2007
Died: August 16
Agronomist
Botanist
Environmentalist
Farmer
Philosopher
Teacher
Writer
Natural
Plot
War
Caring
Acreage
Hands
Taking
Additional
Pieces
Surrounding
Started
Farming
Land
Acquired
Hand
Gradually
Small
Abandoned

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I believe that a revolution can begin from this one strand of straw. Seen at a glance, this rice straw may appear light and insignificant. Hardly anyone would believe that it could start a revolution. But I have come to realize the weight and power of this straw. For me, this revolution is very real.
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We receive our nourishment from the Mother Earth. So we should put our hands together in an attitude of prayer and say please and thank you when dealing with nature.
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Unless people can become natural people, there can be neither natural farming nor natural food.
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As we kill nature, we are killing ourselves, and God incarnate as the world as well.
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If we throw mother nature out the window, she comes back in the door with a pitchfork.
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The increasing desolation of nature, the exhaustion of resources, the uneasiness and disintegration of the human spirit, all have been brought about by humanity's trying to accomplish something.
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As far as my planting program goes, I simply broadcast rye and barley seed on separate fields in the fall . . . while the rice in those areas is still standing. A few weeks after that I harvest the rice, and then spread its straw back over the fields as mulch.
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There is no time in modern agriculture for a farmer to write a poem or compose a song
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Weeds play an important part in building soil fertility and in balancing the biological community . . .
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The healing of the land and the purification of the human spirit is the same process.
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Although natural farming - since it can teach people to cultivate a deep understanding of nature - may lead to spiritual insight, it's not strictly a spiritual practice.
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People should relate to nature as birds do. Birds don't run around carefully preparing fields, planting seeds, and harvesting food. They don't create anything . . . they just receive what is there for them with a humble and grateful heart.
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One thing is all things. To resolve one matter, one must resolve all matters. Changing one thing changes all things. Once I made the decision to sow rice in the fall, I found that I could also stop transplanting, and plowing, and applying chemical fertilizers, and preparing compost, and spraying pesticides.
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Left alone, the earth maintains its own fertility, in accordance with the orderly cycle of plant and animal life.
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I believe that even 'returning-to-nature' and anti pollution activities, no matter how commendable, are not moving toward a genuine solution if they are carried out solely in reaction to the over development of the present age.
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One of the most important discoveries I made in those early years was that to succeed at natural farming, you have to get rid of your expectations. Such products of the mind are often incorrect or unrealistic . . . and can lead you to think you've made a mistake if they're not met.
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Gradually I came to realize that the process of saving the desert of the human heart and revegetating the actual desert is actually the same thing.
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The real path to natural farming requires that a person know what unaltered nature is, so that he or she can instinctively understand what needs to be done - and what must not be done - to work in harmony with its processes.
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If you do not try to make food delicious, you will find that nature has made it so.
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Of course, I have made mistakes . . . just as every grower does. However, I never really think of them as mistakes!
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