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Of course, I have made mistakes . . . just as every grower does. However, I never really think of them as mistakes!

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
Thinking
Courses
Course
Doe
Made
Every
Grower
Really
Mistakes
Never
However
Think
Mistake

More quotes by Masanobu Fukuoka

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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.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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There is no time in modern agriculture for a farmer to write a poem or compose a song
Masanobu Fukuoka
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Life on a small farm might seem primitive, but by living such a life we become able to discover the Great Path. I believe that one who deeply respects his neighborhood and everyday world in which he lives will be shown the greatest of all worlds.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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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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Unless people can become natural people, there can be neither natural farming nor natural food.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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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.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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The healing of the land and the purification of the human spirit is the same process.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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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.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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Natural farming is just farming, nothing more. You don't have to be a spiritually oriented person to practice my methods.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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Left alone, the earth maintains its own fertility, in accordance with the orderly cycle of plant and animal life.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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If a farmer does abandon his or her tame fields completely to nature, mistakes and destruction are inevitable.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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Weeds play an important part in building soil fertility and in balancing the biological community . . .
Masanobu Fukuoka
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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.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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If you do not try to make food delicious, you will find that nature has made it so.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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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.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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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.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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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.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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If we throw mother nature out the window, she comes back in the door with a pitchfork.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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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.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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Straw mulch, a ground cover of white clover interplanted with the crops, and temporary flooding all provide effective weed control in my fields.
Masanobu Fukuoka