Masanobu Fukuoka is author of The One-straw Revolution, an extraordinary document that distills the deepest of philosophical and spiritual truths into a practical approach to farming that he calls natural or do-nothing farming. Since its publication in 1978 in English, the book has shot up to cult status, mandatory reading among advocates of alternative living. Fukuoka is a recipient of the Deshikottam Award presented in 1988 by the Vishwa Bharati University in Santiniketan, India. His second visit to India was in March 1997.

His book has been translated into Indian languages and published by Madhya Pradesh's Friends Rural Society, influencing hundreds of farmers. In Nagpur, an Indian town, a group of 10 farmers have formed the Fukuoka Society. Scores of others have selectively grafted his methods on the more popular system of Organic Farming.

Fukuoka was born in 1914 and schooled in the Western sciences of microbiology and plant pathology. He worked as an agricultural customs inspector in Japan until he became gravely ill at the age of twenty-five. After his sickness he was "reborn", realizing that "human knowledge was meaningless".

Today he likes to say of himself that he has no knowledge, but his books, including One-Straw Revolution and The Natural Way of Farming illustrate that he at least has wisdom. His farming method involves no tillage, no fertilizer, no pesticides, no weeding, no pruning, and remarkably little labor! He accomplishes all this (and high yields) by careful timing of his seeding and careful combinations of plants (polyculture). In short, he has brought the practical art of working with nature to a high level of refinement.

The Natural Way of Farming

Masanobu Fukuoka