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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Masanobu Fukuoka

Image
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.
Masanobu Fukuoka
Image
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
Image
Natural farming is just farming, nothing more. You don't have to be a spiritually oriented person to practice my methods.
Masanobu Fukuoka
Image
As we kill nature, we are killing ourselves, and God incarnate as the world as well.
Masanobu Fukuoka
Image
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
Image
Unless people can become natural people, there can be neither natural farming nor natural food.
Masanobu Fukuoka
Image
Of course, I have made mistakes . . . just as every grower does. However, I never really think of them as mistakes!
Masanobu Fukuoka
Image
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
Image
If we throw mother nature out the window, she comes back in the door with a pitchfork.
Masanobu Fukuoka
Image
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
Image
There is no time in modern agriculture for a farmer to write a poem or compose a song
Masanobu Fukuoka
Image
If a farmer does abandon his or her tame fields completely to nature, mistakes and destruction are inevitable.
Masanobu Fukuoka
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Left alone, the earth maintains its own fertility, in accordance with the orderly cycle of plant and animal life.
Masanobu Fukuoka
Image
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.
Masanobu Fukuoka
Image
The healing of the land and the purification of the human spirit is the same process.
Masanobu Fukuoka
Image
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
Image
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