The Philosophy of Masanobu Fukuoka
Masunobu Fukuoka (1913-2008) was a Japanese farmer and philosopher, who pioneered a school of farming referred to as ‘natural farming’ or ‘do-nothing farming.’ Fukuoka’s methodology entailed minimal human interference in the agricultural process, instead creating conditions in which natural processes, left to their own accord, maximize crop outputs. Fukuoka became highly prominent within the global sustainable farming movement, with his texts ‘The One-Straw Revolution’ and ‘The Road Back to Nature’ selling millions of copies in various languages.
Fukuoka was uninterested in doctrinal religion. Instead, he took nature as the inspiration for his spirituality, philosophy, and practice. Nonetheless, one of the most striking features of Fukuoka’s texts is the manner in which they incorporate many Buddhist elements, particularly those derived from the Taoist-inspired Zen school. With this Zen Buddhist influence, Fukuoka beautifully articulates natural farming as a form of spiritual practice that ultimately overcomes the sense of alienation, dissatisfaction and disenchantment that are characteristic of modern life.
The ecosystem that the farm is woven into consists of an infinitely complex web of interactions which are beyond the capacity of the human mind to grasp. ‘Knowledge’ of nature is always hubris; one can only know, at best, a representation of nature within the mind, and the representation cannot incorporate the complexity of reality. Rather than knowing, natural farming is about being within nature, and living in a way that accords with its cycles.
Fukuoka is particularly sceptical of the value of scientific knowledge as a guide for agriculture. He argues that science is incapable of understanding nature, as it works with linear relationships and abstracted variables. By contrast, real natural phenomena are always embedded in much larger webs of relations. The scientist becomes boxed-up within a particular sub-discipline, unable to see the complexity of nature in its totality. As such, they are incapable of recognising the merits of natural farming, which only operates as a unique complex system that is, strictly speaking, incomprehensible from a scientific viewpoint.
Rather than drawing on scientific knowledge of how particular variables might impact the agricultural system, Fukuoka instead attempts to work within nature’s complex cycles. His practices reflect his do-less philosophy and his belief in nature’s incomprehensible complexity.
For Fukuoka, the ‘extravagance of desire’ (p. 110) is at the heart of our modern ills, and natural farming is the solution. Natural farming offers the ‘Great Way’ to a more spiritual and happy life. One cultivates a lifestyle more closely attuned to the immediate natural environment and more connected to one’s neighbourhood. Where modern life is always busy, the natural farmer’s life is rich in time and divorced from the commercial Maya of money-chasing.
Fukuoka advocates restricting one’s consumption to what is close at hand. Greater health will result from adapting one’s diet to local ecological conditions, rather than consuming foods that require unnatural interventions. He suggests that people should reflect on the hardship that they cause (excessive labor and processing costs) by consuming expensive, extravagant and ultimately unnecessary food. Our desires for shiny, unblemished, firm and fresh-looking food leads to the chemical treatment of fruits and vegetables to give them an aesthetically pleasing appearance. The process diminishes their nutritional value, introduces toxins, and adds unnecessary and wasteful industrial processing to the food supply chain.
The earth is in great peril, due to the corporatization of agriculture, the rising climate crisis, and the ever-increasing levels of global poverty, starvation, and desertification on a massive scale. This present condition of global trauma is not “natural,” but a result of humanity’s destructive actions. And, according to Masanobu Fukuoka, it is reversible. We need to change not only our methods of earth stewardship, but also the very way we think about the relationship between human beings and nature. Fukuoka grew up on a farm on the island of Shikoku in Japan. As a young man he worked as a customs inspector for plants going into and out of the country. This was in the 1930s when science seemed poised to create a new world of abundance and leisure, when people fully believed they could improve upon nature by applying scientific methods and thereby reap untold rewards. While working there, Fukuoka had an insight that changed his life forever. He returned to his home village and applied this insight to developing a revolutionary new way of farming that he believed would be of great benefit to society. This method, which he called “natural farming,” involved working with, not in opposition to, nature. Fukuoka’s inspiring and internationally best-selling book, The One-Straw Revolution was first published in English in 1978. In this book, Fukuoka described his philosophy of natural farming and why he came to farm the way he did. One-Straw was a huge success in the West, and spoke directly to the growing movement of organic farmers and activists seeking a new way of life. For years after its publication, Fukuoka traveled around the world spreading his teachings and developing a devoted following of farmers seeking to get closer to the truth of nature. Sowing Seeds in the Desert, a summation of those years of travel and research, is Fukuoka’s last major work-and perhaps his most important. Fukuoka spent years working with people and organizations in Africa, India, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States, to prove that you could, indeed, grow food and regenerate forests with very little irrigation in the most desolate of places. Only by greening the desert, he said, would the world ever achieve true food security. This revolutionary book presents Fukuoka’s plan to rehabilitate the deserts of the world using natural farming, including practical solutions for feeding a growing human population, rehabilitating damaged landscapes, reversing the spread of desertification, and providing a deep understanding of the relationship between human beings and nature. Fukuoka’s message comes right at the time when people around the world seem to have lost their frame of reference, and offers us a way forward.
Do Less Farming
According to his account in The One-Straw Revolution (Fukuoka, 1978/2009), Fukuoka’s journey to natural farming began with a philosophical realization. After working as a successful agricultural researcher for several years, he found himself one morning struck by the realization that all human knowledge is empty, all human action is meaningless, and that nothingness is the fundamental nature of reality. With this basic existential insight, he began to approach life’s problems with a fundamentally different attitude. He would resist the futile human urge to impose being onto nothingness and structure onto formlessness. Rather than attempting to solve ‘problems’ through actions – new interventions to ‘fix’ things – he began to adopt a more ‘subtractive’ approach. Instead of action, he would experiment with inaction. His philosophy of farming is based around this negative, somewhat Taoist disposition. Rather than solve the problems of agriculture by adding work, he would attempt to do less.
This philosophy assumes that most of the world’s problems arise because of human interventions into nature. Our disruption of the natural balance tends to create problems, which we then attempt to solve through further interventions. Natural farming involves taking a step back, recognizing that problems tend to stem from human intervention, and finding a path to not-doing the problematic action – that is, a path towards minimal intervention. Importantly, Fukuoka (2009, p. 15) acknowledges that this does not mean a complete withdrawal from activity. He makes it very clear that natural farming is not ‘abandonment’ – as this can lead to a complete collapse of the farming system. Rather, it is a methodology for the gradual transition of the farming system back to nature, in such a way that less work is required with each passing season, as the natural system builds upon itself.
This negative, subtractive philosophy finds very clear applications in the farming techniques that Fukuoka advocates. For example, he insists that ploughing is a destructive intervention into nature. Although it has been practiced for centuries, it is an example of humanity’s meddling in nature and creates more problems than it’s worth. Not only is it an unnecessary physical exertion, but it also encourages the growth of weeds. In natural conditions of abundance, ploughing is unnecessary, as the soil is aerated by the roots of plants and the movement of soil organisms. Therefore, Fukuoka’s methods involve no ploughing of the soil whatsoever: one need only ensure that the natural balance is in place, by improving soil health. Likewise, rather than weeding, Fukuoka advocates sowing at opportune times, so that one’s crops grow and establish themselves before weeds have the chance to proliferate.
Books:
- One-Straw Revolution
- Sowing Seeds in the Desert: Natural Farming, Global Restoration, and Ultimate Food Security
- Natural Way of Farming: The Theory and Practice of Green
- The Road Back to Nature: Regaining the Paradise Lost
- The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming by Masanobu Fukuoka (1978)
References:
The Philosophy of Masanobu Fukuoka – The Permaculture Research Institute
Fukuoka, M. (1978/2009). The One-Straw Revolution