Masanobu Fukuoka Quotes - Page 2

The only sensible approach to disease and insect control, I think, is to grow sturdy crops in a healthy environment.

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.

As we kill nature, we are killing ourselves, and God incarnate as the world as well.

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.

When a decision is made to cope with the symptoms of a problem, it is generally assumed that the corrective measures will solve the problem itself. They seldom do. Engineers cannot seem to get this through their heads. These countermeasures are all based on too narrow a definition of what is wrong. Human measures and countermeasures proceed from limited scientific truth and judgment. A true solution can never come about in this way.

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.

The final principle of natural farming is NO PESTICIDES. Nature is in perfect balance when left alone.

Since I turned the fields back to their natural state, I can't say I've had any really difficult problems with insects or disease.

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.

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.

Farming is not just for growing crops, it is for the cultivation...o f human beings!

Modern research divides nature into tiny pieces and conducts tests that conform neither with natural law nor with practical experience. The results are arranged for the convenience of research, not according to the needs of the farmer.

My ultimate dream is to sow seeds in the desert. To revegetate the deserts is to sow seed in people's hearts.

We have come to the point at which there is no other way than to bring about a 'movement' not to bring anything about

Natural farming is just farming, nothing more. You don't have to be a spiritually oriented person to practice my methods.

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.

Before researchers become researches they should become philosophers.

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

I wonder how it is that people's philosophies have come to spin faster than the changing seasons.

Straw mulch, a ground cover of white clover interplanted with the crops, and temporary flooding all provide effective weed control in my fields.

By raising tall trees for windbreaks, citrus underneath, and a green manure cover down on the surface, I have found a way to take it easy and let the orchard manage itself!

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.

Speaking biologically, fruit in a slightly shriveled state is holding its respiration and energy consumption down to the lowest possible level. It is like a person in meditation: his metabolism, respiration, and calorie consumption reach an extremely low level. Even if he fasts, the energy within the body will be conserved. In the same way, when mandarin oranges grow wrinkled, when fruit shrivels, when vegetables wilt, they are in the state that will preserve their food value for the longest possible time.

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.

If a farmer does abandon his or her "tame" fields completely to nature, mistakes and destruction are inevitable.