The One-Straw Revolution_ An Introduction to Natural Farming - Masanobu Fukuoka [32]
Among agricultural chemicals, herbicides are probably the most difficult to dissuade farmers from using. Since ancient times the farmer has been afflicted with what might be termed "the battle against the weeds." Plowing, cultivating between the rows, the ritual of rice transplanting itself, all are mainly aimed at eliminating weeds. Before the development of herbicides, a farmer had to walk many miles through the flooded rice fields each season, pushing a weeding tool up and down the rows and pulling weeds by hand. It is easy to understand why these chemicals were received as a godsend. In the use of straw and clover and the temporary flooding of the fields, I have found a simple way to control weeds without either the hot, hard labor of weeding or the use of chemicals.
A mudwalled hut in the orchard.
Limits of the Scientific Method
Before researchers become researchers they should become philosophers. They should consider what the human goal is, what it is that humanity should create. Doctors should first determine at the fundamental level what it is that human beings depend on for life.
In applying my theories to farming, I have been experimenting in growing my crops in various ways, always with the idea of developing a method close to nature. I have done this by whittling away unnecessary agricultural practices.
Modern scientific agriculture, on the other hand, has no such vision. Research wanders about aimlessly, each researcher seeing just one part of the infinite array of natural factors which affect harvest yields. Furthermore, these natural factors change from place to place and from year to year.
Even though it is the same quarter acre, the farmer must grow his crops differently each year in accordance with variations in weather, insect populations, the condition of the soil, and many other natural factors. Nature is everywhere in perpetual motion; conditions are never exactly the same in any two years.
Modern research divides nature into tiny pieces and conducts tests that conform neither with natural law nor with practical experiences. The results are arranged for the convenience of research, not according to the needs of the farmer. To think that these conclusions can be put to use with invariable success in the farmer's field is a big mistake.
Recently Professor Tsuno of Ehime University wrote a lengthy book on the relationship of plant metabolism to rice harvests. This professor often comes to my field, digs down a few feet to check the soil, brings students along to measure the angle of sunlight and shade and whatnot, and takes plant specimens back to the lab for analysis. I often ask him, "When you go back, are you going to try non-cultivation direct seeding?" He laughingly answers, "No, I'll leave the applications to you. I'm going to stick to research."
So that is how it is. You study the function of the plant's metabolism and its ability to absorb nutrients from the soil, write a book, and get a doctorate in agricultural science. But do not ask if your theory of assimilation is going to be relevant to the yield.
Even if you can explain how metabolism affects the productivity of the top leaf when the average temperature is eighty-four degrees (Fahrenheit), there are places where the temperature is not eighty-four degrees. And if the temperature is eighty-four degrees in Ehime this year, next year it may only be seventy-five degrees. To say that simply stepping up metabolism will increase starch formation and produce a large harvest is a mistake. The geography and topography of the land, the condition of the soil, its structure, texture, and drainage, exposure to sunlight,