Quote

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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Masanobu Fukuoka
Age: 93 †
Born: 1914
Born: February 2
Died: 2007
Died: August 16
Agronomist
Botanist
Environmentalist
Farmer
Philosopher
Teacher
Writer
Running
Receive
Nature
Relate
Around
Humble
Harvesting
Anything
Grateful
Planting
Heart
Bird
Preparing
People
Fields
Carefully
Food
Birds
Create
Seeds

More quotes by Masanobu Fukuoka

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The healing of the land and the purification of the human spirit is the same process.
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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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As we kill nature, we are killing ourselves, and God incarnate as the world as well.
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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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If a farmer does abandon his or her tame fields completely to nature, mistakes and destruction are inevitable.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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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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If we throw mother nature out the window, she comes back in the door with a pitchfork.
Masanobu Fukuoka
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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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Weeds play an important part in building soil fertility and in balancing the biological community . . .
Masanobu Fukuoka
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Farming is not just for growing crops, it is for the cultivation...o f human beings!
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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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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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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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.
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