Sowing Seeds in the Desert by Masanobu
Fukuoka
This book is a
translation from the Japanese of what Mr. Fukuoka considered his most important
work of writing, since it more explicitly and completely elucidates his life
philosophy and perspective and focuses attention on the ways in which the
methods detailed in his other two translated books could be applied to the
restoration of the planet by means of revegetating ravaged landscapes.
It is a book that will
be more difficult than others to characterize with the brevity associated with
this series of book reviews. I shall
endeavor to extract some of the most a propos and characteristic passages and
situate them in the review by way of some surrounding commentary, which will be
italicized so as to be easily distinguished from the quotations. I am afraid I can do little more this way
than to intrigue the reader of this review; Mr. Fukuoka’s outlook is so
surprising and refreshing, so carefully and patiently crafted that it simply
will not do to attempt to “capture” it here.
I can only hope you, dear reader, might become curious enough to pick up
the book for yourself and give it the time it deserves.
We’ll get started
trying to understand Mr. Fukuoka’s mind with some words from the introduction
by Larry Korn, editor and translator:
Page XIV: “He saw that nature is in balance and perfectly
abundant just as it is. People, with their
limited understanding, try to improve on nature thinking the result will be
better for human beings, but adverse side effects inevitably appear. Then people take measures to counteract these
side effects, and larger side effects appear.
By now, almost everything humanity is doing is mitigating problems
caused by previous misguided actions.”
After a most
fascinating spiritual conversion experience in his youth, Mr. Fukuoka spent
some time trying to convince others of his perspective, to little avail. He then decided the best way forward was to
put it into practice. Specifically, he
went home to the family farm.
Page XV: “Mr. Fukuoka moved into a small hut in the orchard
and spent the next several years observing the condition of the soil and noting
the interaction of the plants and animals that lived there. Recalling that time, Mr. Fukuoka said, ‘I
simply emptied my mind and tried to absorb what I could from nature.’
Mr. Fukuoka wanted to create a productive environment where
nature would have free rein. But where
to begin? No one he knew had ever tried
that sort of thing before, so he had no mentor to show him the way. He noticed that the plants present in the
orchard were limited to citrus trees and a few shrubs, and while some scraggly
weeds grew up here and there, the exposed soil had eroded down to the hard, red
subsoil. In such a situation, if he
simply did nothing, nature would continue in a downward spiral. Because people had created this unnatural
condition, he felt a responsibility to repair the damage.”
His first idea was to
let the citrus trees revert to their natural form, to stop shaping and pruning
them. Most of them responded by becoming
pest- and disease-ridden and quickly dying.
Of that time, he said:
Page 5: “This first experiment, simply doing nothing, was a
magnificent failure. It was not natural
farming; it was abandonment. But I was
pleased that at least I had learned from that disaster the difference between
nonintervention and taking human responsibility.”
And learn he did. With astonishing success.
Page 85-86: “The soil of this once fertile forestland
eventually eroded down to the clay subsoil.
Years ago, at the site of my natural farm, people tried
planting mandarin orange trees, but the trees did not thrive, so they largely
abandoned the land. That is the land I
started with. Since then I have turned
the soil of my family’s orchard into soil as fertile as the forest soil it once
was.”
And here is his basic
grain growing technique in a nutshell:
Page 65: “For the past fifty years or so, I have grown crops
without tilling the soil, and without using fertilizers or agricultural
chemicals. I have done practically
nothing, and the soil in my fields has become the best in my village. I simply scattered seeds in clay pellets,
covered them with straw, and grew a healthy ground cover including white clover
and vetch. I supplied nature with the
tools, and then I relied on nature’s disposition toward fertility.”
After some time and
some success, some people began to take notice, and a few approached him for
education. He obliged by hosting them on
his farm and training them to his methods.
Page XX: “Mr. Fukuoka purposely had [the students on his
farm] live in [a] semi-primitive manner because he believed it helped provide
the sensitivity necessary to farm by his natural method.”
He believed in getting
the cart and the horse in the right order:
Page XXI: “Mr. Fukuoka told us over and over that the
philosophy was everything, and the farming was merely an example of the
philosophy. ‘If you do not understand
the philosophy,’ he said, ‘the rest becomes empty activity.’”
Much of that
philosophy centers on the notion of “True nature”, a confounding term if ever
there was one. He approaches this with a
very eastern bent, not surprisingly. A
few quotes from the section, “The True Meaning of Nature”, which starts on page
8:
“I spent many years of my youth foolishly searching for something
I ‘should’ have been doing. Instead, I
should have entrusted everything to the flowers blooming in the meadow. Even if people do nothing at all, the grasses
and trees and the songbirds will live on.”
“I have finally learned that, although nature does not reach
out to people directly, people can always approach nature and seek salvation
that way.”
“Once long ago, when I was in the mountains, I unconsciously
wrote, ‘The mountains, rivers, grasses and trees are all Buddha,’ on a piece of
wood. At other times I would suggest
that ‘God’ refers to the absolute truth that transcends time and space. Perhaps an even better description, I
sometimes thought, was Lao-Tse’s term ‘The Nameless.’ I was really just struggling with words. Actually, I think people would be better off
without words altogether.”
Page 11: “…the discriminating and analytical knowledge of
scientists may be useful for taking nature apart and looking at its parts, but
it is of no use for grasping the reality of pure nature.”
I cannot claim to understand all of this stuff:
Page 12-13: “Seen from a nonrelative perspective, nature
transcends beauty and ugliness, good and evil.
Whether we see this world as filled with contradictions, or as existing
in perfect harmony, is determined by whether we analyze it using our intellect,
or grasp the entirety of nature without making any distinctions at all. It is only by doing the latter that we can
see nature’s true form.”
Page 139: “If you understand the spirit of a single flower,
you understand everything. You understand
the religion, philosophy, and science are one and at the same time they are
nothing at all.
It is incongruous to say, ‘I am a religious person. I understand the mind of God but not the mind
of a pumpkin.’ Or, ‘I earn my livelihood
by being a professor of philosophy, so I have no need or desire to become a
farmer and grow crops.
Without understanding what it is to know things intuitively,
people have sought knowledge and have become lost.”
Page 140 (quoting himself): “’When people try to grow crops
using human knowledge, they will never be anything more than farmers. If they can look at things with an empty mind
as a child does, then, through the crops and their own labor, they will be able
to gaze into the entire universe.’”
The man can say some strangely
beautiful things, but then again some things he says are mighty fearsome and
equally hard to argue with:
Page 13: “People do sometimes sense the sacredness of
nature, such as when they look closely at a flower, climb high peaks, or
journey deep into the mountain. Such
aesthetic sense, love, receptivity, and understanding are people’s most basic
instincts—their true nature. These days,
however, humans are flying in a completely different direction to some unknown
destination, and they seem to be doing it as rapidly as possible.”
He was no fan of
religion:
Page 14-15: “In the present age of disintegration the
various religions of the world, old and new, large and small, are becoming very
active. Indeed, whenever the world has
fallen into disorder, religious movements have flourished…I look forward to the
day when there is no need for sacred scriptures or sutras. The dragonfly will be the messiah.”
With his emphasis on
spiritual and philosophical perspective, it would be easy to write him off when
the time comes for logic, but he is no slouch there. The text is rich with pith-flavored logical
observations that are hard to ignore, even if I can’t substantiate the
assumptions they contain:
Page 42-43: “It is important to reflect on what has happened
historically in regard to agriculture and medicine. We have seen huge advances in modern
medicine, but there is little value in the advancement of medicine if the
number of sick people continues to increase.
It is the same with modern agriculture.
How can we congratulate ourselves on the advances in modern agriculture,
including greatly increased production, if the rate of starvation, scarcity,
depletion, and disease increases even more rapidly?”
For all his lack of
enthusiasm for religion, he was also no convert to cold, hard science (I would
have to agree that “science” is one of the major religions of our age), though
he cared profoundly for knowledge and truth.
Page 87-88: “…unlike the typical scientist I have not tried
to amass data or systematically formulate measures for preventing
desertification. Instead, my desert
prevention measures are strictly intuitive and based on observation. I arrived at them by using a deductive
method. In other words, I started with
the recognition that the causes of desertification in most areas are misguided
human knowledge and action. If we
eliminated them, I believed that nature would certainly heal itself…If you
believe in intuitive insight, the road will open on its own accord.” He does
recognize, however, that some places are so damaged as to need intervention,
the strategies for which he conveys in the book.
Another zinger that I
can’t yet translate into meaningful changes, but which I deeply know to be true
and can sense peace in the wings, should I learn to trust it:
Page 43: “To speak of creatures as beneficial insects,
harmful insects, pathogenic bacteria, or troublesome birds is like saying the
right hand is good and the left hand is bad.
Nature is an endless cycle, in which all things participate in the same
dance of life and death, living together and dying together.”
He has a penchant for
thinking in complete systems. I can’t
vouch for the “efficiency” of the following vision for agriculture (which is
presented as a counterpoint to his rebuke of CAFO meat production), but it
lines up roughly with where I hope we are headed here on the farm:
Page 92: “In what I would consider to be an ideal situation
for raising cows and other farm animals, the flowers of clover and vegetables
would bloom in an orchard of trees laden with fruit and nuts. Bees would fly among the barley and wild
mustard that had been sown there and later reseeded by themselves. Chickens and rabbits would forage on whatever
they could find. Ducks and geese would
paddle about in the ponds with fish swimming below. At the foot of the hills and in the valley,
pigs and wild boars would fatten themselves on worms and crayfish, while goats
would occasionally peek out from among the trees in the woods.
Scenes like this can still be found in the poor villages of
some countries not yet swallowed up by modern civilization. The real question is whether we see this way
of life as uneconomical and primitive, or as a superb organic community in
which people, animals, and nature are one.
A pleasant living environment for animals is also a utopia for human
beings.”
Garden-variety organic
farming didn’t impress Mr. Fukuoka. He
saw it as basically a less toxic (usually) imitation of other forms of
industrial agriculture. I would mostly
have to agree, though I am less confident of my solutions than he was of his,
and I find his teaching challenging (even if appealing) to my mindset and my
tendencies. What I am confident of is
that we have the same goals in mind and the same sense of what is possible.
Page 137: “As far as I can see, the only way is to follow
the road back to nature. I believe that
by doing this, we will establish techniques that are far more appropriate than
our present technology…It is fine to turn gradually from organic farming to the
road that leads to nonscientific, natural farming. It is fine to set one’s sights on farming
that perpetuates itself sustainably, even while enjoying life on a designed
farm. But these efforts should not be
centered on rules and techniques. At the
core there must be a sound, realistic way of seeing the world. Once the philosophy is understood, the
appropriate techniques will become clear as day. Of course, the techniques will be different
for different situations and conditions, but the underlying philosophy will not
change. This is the most direct way to
create a new agriculture that is more than just sustainable. It will provide for our needs and also heal
the earth and the human spirit.”
Mr. Fukuoka’s
searching led him to an even more comprehensive vision of life, much as it does
for many of the world’s great searchers and livers of truth. This passage reminds me of Martin Luther King
Jr.’s notion of “The Beloved Community.”
Page 15-16: “When I mention that human society is on the
wrong path, I often hear the retort, ‘Then show me a better one.’ Because it does not have a name yet, I will
refer to it as ‘natural culture and community.’
Natural culture is simply a way of life in which people enjoy the truth
and beauty of nature, a life in which people, with freedom in their hearts,
climb mountains, play in meadows, bathe in the warm rays of sunlight, breathe pure
air, drink crystalline water, and experience the true joy of life. The society I am describing is one in which
people will create a free and generous community…If humanity can regain its
original kinship with nature, we should be able to live in peace and
abundance. Seen through the eyes of
modern civilization, however, this life of natural culture must appear to be
monotonous and primitive, but not to me…We must realize that both in the past
and today, there is only one ‘sustainable’ course available to us. We must find our way back to true
nature. We must set ourselves to the
task of revitalizing the earth.
Regreening the earth, sowing seeds in the desert—that is the path
society must follow. My travels around
the world have convinced me of that.”
And there is this
beautiful passage that followed a very interesting analysis of a visit to a
camp for Ethiopian refugees:
Page 43: “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.”
He was not afraid to
present his succinct analysis of rather broad topics:
Page 50-51: “Even if our goal is to protect forests,
revegetate the desert, and revolutionize agriculture, if we do not resolve the
fundamental problems of economics and people’s way of living, we will not be
able to accomplish anything…The capitalist system is based on the notion of
ever-increasing production and consumption of material goods, and therefore, in
the modern economy, people’s value or worth comes to be determined by their
possessions. But if people create
conditions and environments that do not
make those things necessary, the things, no matter what they are, become
valueless. Cars, for example, are not
considered to be of value by people who are not in a hurry…People could get
along perfectly well without unnecessary goods if they lived a life in which
nature provided everything—assuming, of course, that they had access to the
natural world.”
It was several decades
before his methods and ideas began to be valued more broadly. Eventually he had invitations to speak and
consult internationally, and in so doing traveled away from Japan for the first
time:
Page XXV: “When he first saw the condition of the landscape
in California he was shocked by how barren it was. Some of that, he noted, was caused by the
climate, which lacks the dependable summer rains of Japan, but much of it was
caused by careless agricultural practices, poor water management, overgrazing,
and overlogging. Eventually he came to
refer to this as ‘California’s ecological disaster.’ After visiting India and Africa, he got an
idea of the magnitude of the worldwide ecological crises. From that time on he devoted all his energy
to solving the problem of desertification using natural farming.”
This man may be my new
favorite international development theorist, with the kinds of conclusions he
drew from his travels. Here is a passage
the stems from a tour of Africa:
Page 76: “…when travelling over land, I saw large trees of
unknown varieties. People told me that
several hundred years ago these large trees formed a dense forest. Naturally, I tried to find out why the forest
had disappeared.
From the accounts given to me by an Ethiopian elder and some
Somali farmers, the main cause was the colonial agricultural policies brought
in by Westerners. They introduced and
exclusively grew commercial crops such as coffee, tea, sugarcane, cotton,
tobacco, peanuts, and corn. Production
of personal food crops was forbidden.
This was done in the name of enriching the national economy.
When I went to apply for a visa from the Somalian
government, I was flabbergasted when they told me that any kind of instruction
that agitates the farmers and encourages them to become self-sufficient would not
be welcome. If such activity went too
far, they said, it would be considered treason.
Today, after two hundred years of colonial rule, seeds of
the crops necessary for self-sufficiency have all but disappeared in
Africa. If the seeds are gone, and the
farmers are reduced to growing cash crops, they descend from being farmers to
simple laborers. They will have no
chance of standing on their own feet again, and any possibility of agriculture
that benefits nature will be cut off.
Because the land cannot support the continuous cultivation of coffee and
sugarcane, other seeds must be sown to restore the natural cycle, leading to
healthy soil.”
I wish all
agricultural development workers would be capable of this kind of interaction
with their clients:
Page 80-81: “I talked with one tribal elder at length about his community’s situation. ‘Rain has stopped falling in Africa, and so we can’t do anything. The earth seems to have died,’ he lamented.
I answered, ‘It may seem that earth polluted by chemical
fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides has died, but the soil of Africa is
just resting. The red clay is taking a
nap. If the people will work to awaken
the sleeping soil, then you will be able to grow anything.’
‘What do we do to wake it up? Tell me scientifically,’ he replied.
‘The problem is not that the soil is deficient in nutrients
such as nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium.
The problem is that these nutrients have been absorbed by the clay and
are not soluble in water, so the plant’s roots are not able to absorb
them. What you need are scissors for
cutting the nutrients from the clay.’
He laughed and said, ‘The only one with such handy scissors
is a crab.’
I responded, ‘The microorganisms in the soil will do it for
you, without your having to work hard at all.
You don’t even need to know anything about microorganisms. When you sow the seeds of crops and trees,
just be sure to mix in the seeds of legumes such as Egyptian clover (Trifolium alexandrinum) and alfalfa with
them. The more partners there are, the
better. As the life in the soil returns,
the nutrients will become available to the plants once again.’ When I explained it this way, he seemed to
understand.”
Here at Tangly Woods,
we certainly have a lot in common with Mr. Fukuoka’s assumptions about
agriculture. In my view, his unusual
philosophy and life experiences lent him a rare vantage point resulting in some
clear-minded opinions. Take a listen:
Page 89-90: “…while modern agriculture appears to be
increasing yields, net productivity is actually decreasing. If we compare the energy required to produce
a crop of rice and barley with the energy harvested in the food itself, we find
a disturbing trend. Fifty years ago in
the United States, each calorie of energy invested to grow rice resulted in a
yield of about two calories of grain.
Thirty or forty years ago the two figures became equal, and now, the
investment of two calories of energy produces only one calorie of grain. This is largely because of the shift from
using such things as hand labor, draft animals, and cover crops to using
machinery and chemicals, which also require factories to create the tractors
and chemicals, and mining and drilling to produce the raw materials and fossil
fuels…So in terms of energy production, modern petroleum-based farming is not
producing anything at all. Actually, it
is ‘producing’ a loss. The more that is
produced the more of the earth’s resources are being eaten up. In addition, it creates pollution and
destroys the soil. The apparent increase
in food production is also subsidized by our rapid depletion of the soil’s
organic matter. We are simply
squandering this gift of stored solar energy…There is no technology for
increased food production that uses more energy than high technology. Therefore, whoever controls petroleum can
control the world’s food supply. I find
this situation really disturbing.”
Page 123-124: “About half of the land in the United States
is, or is becoming, desert. I felt that
the expanding American desert was at least as great a problem as the deserts of
Africa, but most Americans seemed totally unaware that their country is becoming
more arid…they think it is totally natural that when little rain falls in the
summer, the grass dries up and the plains turn brown, but it was not always
this way. Americans are so dazzled by
the vastness of their land that most people do not seem to be concerned about
preserving it…there is no way, amid the ruin of the land, that farmers can
become well-off no matter how much petroleum ‘rain’ they use to grow their
crops…Agricultural experts and agribusiness are bound by the idea that even
land that has lost its natural vitality can still produce crops with the
addition of petroleum energy, agricultural chemicals, and water.”
Page 129: “It seems that the main goal in the life of the
average American is to save money, live in the country in a big house
surrounded by large trees, and enjoy a carefully manicured lawn. It would be a further source of pride to
raise a few horses. Everywhere I went I
preached the abolition of lawn culture, saying that it was an imitation green
created for human beings at the expense of nature and was nothing more than a
remnant of the arrogant aristocratic culture of Europe.”
Page 108: “Originally, water, soil, and crops were a single
unit, but since the time people came to distinguish soil from water, and to
separate soil from crops, the links among the three were broken. They became isolated, and were placed in
opposition to one another…instead of thinking that grasses and trees grow in
the soil, it is actually the grasses and trees, other plants, animals,
microorganisms, and water that create
the soil and give it life.”
He does venture into
some territory of which I am not yet sure, even while I am truly grateful for
his willingness to put forward his bold ideas.
He is working with data I agree with, but his conclusions are
startling. Take this passage:
Page 95 “We cannot simply put things back the way they once
were. Too much has happened. Conditions are far different today from what
they were just one hundred years ago.
Soil has eroded and become drier due to agriculture, overgrazing, and
cutting too many trees. Plant
communities and the balance of microorganisms have been altered beyond
recognition by plowing and agricultural chemicals. Animals and plants are becoming extinct from
the elimination of their habitat. The
seas are becoming more acidic, and even the climate is changing. Even if we did go to the trouble of putting
back the plants that were native to a certain place, there is no guarantee that
they would thrive there anymore.
My idea is entirely different. I think we should mix all the species
together and scatter them worldwide, completely doing away with their uneven
distribution. This would give nature a
full palette to work with as it establishes a new balance given the current
conditions. I call this the Second
Genesis.”
Here is a similar
notion, but less controversial perhaps:
Page 98: “The earth will not come back to life if we only
plant a small variety of trees we deem to be useful. A tree cannot grow up in isolation. We need to grow tall trees, midsized trees,
shrubs, and understory plants all together.
Once a mixed ecosystem is re-created, the rain will begin to fall again.”
A friend of mine refers
gratefully and with wonderment to Mr. Fukuoka’s “voice.” I certainly feel, after reading this volume,
spoken to. I am unprepared to assert
anything definitive about how important or unimportant a given teacher is to
the evolving project of human spirituality, but this person makes my short
list.
I have often wondered
what it is that has magnetized me to agriculture for so long, and through so
many life changes, when I started out life as a sensitive, artistic, and
spiritually oriented person…not the type people usually associate with farming,
let’s just say. I furthermore have
wondered where the restlessness has come from that disallows my becoming
content with the standard and current agricultural systems. Why must I constantly be blazing my own path,
voicing and living into concerns that the vast majority of folks know or care
next to nothing about, with nobody to hold me to a standard but myself? If nothing else, reading the writing of Mr.
Fukuoka lets me know I am not alone in my concerns or my drive towards this
iconoclastic version of excellence. He
names the trouble, laments the losses, and dares to put forward some solutions
and some very practical advice to get the would-be natural farmer started. It is a remarkable work he has done, and most
welcome.
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