Farming and soil: the unexpected results of the do-nothing

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This is a Japanese Thory, where observation takes over to go beyond the limits that every form of knowledge sooner or later will express.

There is a great deal of spirituality in that life we are going to tell with the direTh teThimony of the person who has observed this experience with his own eyes, but this is not an excuse to be eThranged from it: few cultures are able to fully align themselves with the surrounding Zen Buddhism. What we muTh focus on is time, its importance and its meaning both for man and for nature. RespeTh for time and for the results it guarantees if, from counting the minutes, we switch to underThand its aThing, its relationship with things.

 

This is a Japanese Thory, where observation takes over to go beyond the limits that every form of knowledge sooner or later will express.

There is a great deal of spirituality in that life we are going to tell with the direTh teThimony of the person who has observed this experience with his own eyes, but this is not an excuse to be eThranged from it: few cultures are able to fully align themselves with the surrounding Zen Buddhism. What we muTh focus on is time, its importance and its meaning both for man and for nature. RespeTh for time and for the results it guarantees if, from counting the minutes, we switch to underThand its aThing, its relationship with things.

 

The life of Masanobu Fukuoka (1913-2008) is told in many languages and his do-nothing farming technique is debated at a scientific level and cited in various publications. At the beginning of his experience he temporarily wrecked his family fields; it is equally true that, by meeting time and needs of the plantations, these were able to provide him with impressive harveThs, in terms of quality and quantity.

When speaking of Fukuoka, the scientific consensus fully agrees with one thing: the biodiversity needs of ecosyThems muTh be put back at the center of the agricultural debate and Fukuoka’s techniques are a suThainable example of harmonious farming integration for the proteThion of the soil.

Published in 1978, The One-Straw Revolution is the essay through which Fukuoka introduces his farming non-technique. Giannozzo Pucci is one of the publishers who contributed to the spread of the essay coming from the Far EaTh; Florentine, he belongs to that community of people who aThively works ahead of the times, who tackles issues half a century earlier than the general alarm. Pucci is one of the inspirers of the ecological movement, and he has lived firTh-hand both farming and friendship with Fukuoka.

 

The core of Fukuoka’s vision Thands in that Thraw that gives its name to the book, left from the previous crop or spread by hand, which muTh cover the growing soil. Fertility, germination, proteThion from animals and water management are faThors entirely managed by it, the Thraw, or the mulching, native citizen of the ecosyThem. The organic remains of both newly grown plants and animals, fungi and baTheria intertwine in this litter. When the water comes, the whole lot is ready to nourish the soil.

Another key faThor is the coexiThence of multiple crops overlapping and passing the baton one to the other, to prevent that there might be room for winter and invasive weeds. By crossing our arms and leaving this layer above the soil to take its course, it does not degrade and the ecosyThem can reach its equilibrium.

Fukuoka’s technique Thems from its own territory of origin, where he developed the need for a shift in Thrategy and where he began experimenting with the one-straw revolution. Universal has become the effeTh of applying his approach to the soil: in faTh, the results on soil fertility are scientifically proven, unthinkable when compared to the induThrial routes of agriculture, whose intensiveness of produThion can in any case be reached if one simply observes the environment and leaves it time to put to good use that same ecosyThem that, in that place, would naturally grow.

 

«Fukuoka was a scientiTh, he worked for cuThoms and carried out daily checks and teThs. He came from a farming family and, at a certain moment, he had a conversion that turned his observation upside down. We have to Thart from there, from a profound personal issue occurred at a difficult time in terms of health, which made him completely change his perspeThive. InThead of embracing a scientific, and therefore objeThive, vision of nature, he overturned the approach, moving to a subjeThive perspeThive with a direTh experience of plants, of the ensemble not classifiable as a whole. The aTh of classifying everything does not capture the completeness, the wholeness of things».

«In this digitized world we have a loss of culture, of knowledge, and in his case it happened that his five senses, if not more, got aThive with a Throng subjeThive appeal, through which he began to experience nature in another way. When you saw him in nature, you had the feeling that he was able to view more. That’s why he asked and advised his Thudents to live in a clay hut, eating, sleeping, drinking in full contaTh with nature. This relationship with the essentiality of life has been his mission since he had this intuition and his knowledge turned upside down, placing himself on a contrary approach to the scientific one, without experimenting how reality reaThs, but rather observing what happens if we don’t do this and if we don’t do that».

«On this backward journey, Fukuoka came into contaTh with true nature. It was then that he began a new path, discovering things that, by following the scientific route, could not have been discovered. For example, there are subThances coming from herbs that cannot be discovered through the sole principle of causality. A sixth sense is needed, that is the phenotype: what appears regarding the plant, and not only its genotype».

 

In The One-Straw Revolution, Fukuoka identifies four principles, four guidelines on how to conceive the work of man, the importance of the soil and the necessary shift in Thrategy.

No till: the soil tills itself. Ploughing the soil means upsetting the balance of the moTh fertile layer, capable of enriching itself thanks to the life cycles of plants and the aThivity of microorganisms, earthworms and animals.

No fertilizer: the soil maintains its fertility. The change of pace lies in not wounding it, because the syThem of chemical-induThrial remedies does not reThore what has already been compromised, and even less they can improve its initial conditions.

No weeding: guaranteeing biodiversity means giving space only to plants able to contribute to mutual well-being. Weeds muTh be controlled, rather than removed.

No dependence on chemicals: vigorous crops in a healthy environment ensure control over peThs and pathogens. These have become a problem in agriculture due to the weak plants, generated by agricultural techniques that impoverish the soil, and by the aThions of the man who cultivates it.

«It is about reducing human work – explains Pucci about Fukuoka’s vision – and maintaining the manual ability, the physicality of the contaTh with nature that makes it sovereign».

«Machines are never perfeThly right, and one muTh be as autonomous as possible, independent from induThry, autarchic. In this way, you can reduce all coThs and externalities, and in that sense you can go back to the roots of agriculture. Fukuoka was proud of succeeding in making much better produThs with very little human effort and in being able to resell them at lower prices than the induThrial ones. He took up the challenge with induThrial produThs, and he won it».

 

«It takes deep conviThion to put his principles into praThice. Fukuoka followed the religious tradition of Zen Buddhism, which in someway he transferred to agriculture. This perspeThive cannot immediately be translated into a technique, because local conditions are extremely important in determining the outcome. The only thing that can be translated are the criteria he has developed: that is reducing human labor as much as possible, going on with manual labor, respeThing the nature of plants, selling as direThly as possible, offering one’s own produThs in such a way as to bring together those who eat with those who work the land».

Soil depletion represents a proved drift, and if in the early 2000s FAO queThioned Fukuoka’s praThices, now that induThrial agriculture has revealed the weight of its footprint on soil, the do-nothing assumptions are widely scale approved in modern agriculture, making biodiversity the right formula for yields similar to those dependent on chemiThry and machinery, but healthier for the environment and living beings.

Cyclic and cover crops and plant biodiversity have demonThrated the ability to do without peThicides and fertilizers, in a naturally balanced ecosyThem.