Sowing Seeds in the Desert

Perhaps one of the most transformational books for me on Agrarianism, Local sufficiency and Climate change. It convinced me that the ever-growing desert of the world is what will kill us, with our inability to grow and distribute enough food for everyone. But it also made me believe that the biggest thing many of us can do is learn to grow food. We perhaps don't need more farmers in the world to produce enough net food for the world, but to grow enough food sustainably - meaning locally and regeneratively - we would do well to have another farmer in each town. The world needs more people who go around converting lawns into food-forests like Robin Greenfield, or restoring dying country-town economies (like those that have 1 euro houses).

This book inspired me to write Farming at the end of the world. Below, you can find some of my notes and quotes. There's an immense amount of wisdom here, and I'm hardly cherry-picking; I think the book is worth a read for yourself, but enjoy these bangers.

The purpose of the book, and Fukuoka's legacy, is best summarised by this quote.

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. There are many other people besides me who question the path of modern society. They are filled with foreboding, wondering whether or not we can solve, or somehow evade, the current environmental crisis. There are even many scientists who believe that the long-term sustainability of life on earth, from the standpoint of the natural environment and its resources, will be decided in the next twenty or thirty years. It is these people to whom I speak directly. 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.
p. 42

Epic.

“Rain doesn’t only fall from the sky,” I suggested. “It also falls up from below.” The vegetation, especially trees, actually causes the rain to fall. #quote
p. 81

This sums up the destructive plight of modern civilisation; we had enough hubris to fire the bacteria and insects that had worked the soil for millions of years.

When people started plowing, that marked the beginning of modern European civilization. Culture, in its original sense means “to till the soil with a plow.”
p. 83

...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. To loosen the soil, he scattered seeds of deep-rooted vegetables such as daikon radish, burdock, dandelion, and comfrey. To clean and enrich the soil, he added plants that have substantial, fibrous root systems, including mustard, radish, buckwheat, alfalfa, yarrow, and horseradish. He also knew he needed green manure plants that fixed nitrogen, but which ones? He tried thirty different species before concluding that white clover and vetch were ideal for his conditions. The roots of the white clover form a mat in the top few inches of the soil so they are effective at suppressing weeds. The vetch grows well in the winter, when the white clover does not grow as readily. It is important to note that when Mr. Fukuoka carried out experiments such as these, it was always with the goal of solving specific practical problems. They were never done just for their own sake or to try to understand nature—simply to get feedback. To improve the deeper layers of the soil, he first tried burying organic material such as partially decayed tree trunks and branches that he collected from the surrounding woodlands. Eventually he concluded that this approach gave far too little return for the effort it required. Besides, his goal was to create a self-sustaining system, which, once established, would take care of itself. He decided to let plants do the work instead. He planted nitrogen-fixing acacia trees here and there among the citrus as well as other trees and shrubs that were hardy and improved the soil deep down. The acacia trees grew quickly, so after eight or nine years he would cut them down and use the wood for firewood and as a building material, leaving the roots to decay over time. As he removed the trees, he planted others in different places so there was always soil-building going on. Eventually, the soil became deep and rich and the structure of orchard came to resemble that of a natural woodland with tall overstory trees, midsized fruit-bearing trees, shrubs, vines, and a ground layer of weeds, perennials, medicinal plants, mustard, buckwheat, and vegetables. White clover grew everywhere as a permanent, soil-enriching ground cover. By the time I came to the farm, there were more than thirty different kinds of fruit- and nut-bearing trees in the orchard, as well as berries of all kinds, vegetables, and native plants in each of the different layers of the “food forest.” There were also chickens and geese running around, a few goats, some rabbits, and bee hives. Birds, insects, and other wildlife were everywhere and shiitake mushrooms were growing on decaying logs which were lined up in shady areas under the trees. One principle that Mr. Fukuoka followed as he worked out the details of his farming technique was to consider how one could do as little as possible.
p. 14

When Mr. Fukuoka first inherited the orchard, however, most of the natural systems had been damaged so badly that he had to do many tasks himself that later became unnecessary. Once the permanent soil-building combination of plants had become established, for example, he no longer needed to fertilize. In the early years, until he established a diversity of plants and habitats for insects, he had to grow chrysanthemum plants from which he derived the natural insecticide pyrethrum. He used this to control aphids and caterpillars on his vegetables. Once the soil improved and the natural balance of insects was restored, this too, became unnecessary.
p. 16

One major linguistic concern is that Japanese uses many passive forms in sentence construction, while English has a preponderance of active forms. A literal translation from the Japanese will tend to create a tone of formality and indirect expression in English which does not exist for Japanese readers.
p. 25

An important idea is that nature does not have the hierarchies or value we prescribe to it. There is a food chain, but the "apex predator" is not the "highest" species in the system, nor does the chain end with the apex predator; the apex predator dies, and the bacteria and fungi at the "bottom"" of the food chain consume it.

The idea is that the life-forms on earth came into being in sequence, along with the development of the earth itself. Various life-forms appeared and lived as part of the food web, but only those that successfully adapted to their environment survived. This is known as the theory of natural selection, the theory of the most adaptable, and sometimes popularly referred to as the survival of the fittest. Among all the life-forms, those that are selected by nature and survive the struggle for existence obtain the right to live and reproduce. One question I have about this theory is: What basis was used to determine which species are higher or lower, and which are strong or weak? To decide that the phenomenon of the survival of the fittest is the providence of nature and that people are the highest, most evolved species seems to reflect more the strongman logic of human beings than the true state of nature. Actually, no one can say which species is the strongest because all living things depend on one another to survive, reproduce, and eventually decompose, so life can go on for all. It is true that all forms of life—by necessity and by natural design—consume one another to live, but they do not intentionally bring about another’s extinction, systematically deprive other species of their source of food, or create factions and wars. The same cannot be said for human beings. In nature’s cyclical rhythms, there are no grounds for the discriminatory view that underlies Darwin’s view of superiority and inferiority that deems single-celled organisms as lower, and more complicated life forms as higher. It would be more appropriate to say we are all one continuous life-form.
p. 47

If you restore the natural balance enough of your garden, it will start to naturally select its own species. In other words, you do not need to selectively or artificially breed any species, so long as you allow species to die.

After years of crossbreeding rice in my fields, however, I finally concluded that on a natural farm, people do not need to create new varieties by artificial crossbreeding at all, since the insects that most people consider as harmful were creating new varieties on their own. In my rice fields, I noticed that after locusts and other insects had chewed round holes in the rice grains just as the heads were sprouting, slugs, snails, cutworms, and other creatures came along and crawled over the grains at night. They ate down to the stamens in the holes, after which windblown pollen from other varieties adhered and achieved fertilization. In other words, rice, which is said to be self-pollinating, can also be pollinated by other plants, and in this way new varieties arise naturally. In a conventionally farmed paddy field sprayed with insecticide, natural hybrids do not occur. On a natural farm, however, they can easily survive, and there are many chances for new varieties to appear. In the end, there is no need for people to imitate nature by carrying out artificial crossbreeding. It is all being done for them.
p. 53

While we have selectively bred some species and possibly lost track of "native" species (meaning "the last naturally evolved species before we started intervening"), hope is not lost, because natural selection does not only move "forward". As hinted above, evolution does not care for our definitions of value or hierarchy; natural selection is merely a process of playing and finding the most suited species for the current system. In this way, if we allow nature to take the reins of selection again, it will re-evolve "native" species again, as we can expect nature to converge on the mutually beneficial species that formed the pre-existing system that existed before human meddling.

Alongside crossbreeding rice with rice, I experimented with crossbreeding rice with weeds such as deccan grass (Echinochloa colona) and foxtail (wild rye) and was thinking that if that went well, I would try more combinations with foxtail millet and Chinese millet, but my original purpose was not to study rice for its own sake. I was really just amusing myself by going in the opposite direction of what was being recommended by agronomists at the time. I was doing a reverse breeding in search of atavisms: potentially valuable species that had been lost over the centuries. With today’s technology, I undoubtedly would have succeeded should I have taken my research any farther, but I did not have the slightest intention of setting foot in the domain of the biological sciences. I stopped at the point of confirming the possibility. When I saw insects were creating a succession of new varieties in the fields of my natural farm, I thought it would be better to leave things up to them, and I stepped back.
p. 54

While there is perhaps nothing wrong with manually propagating ("selecting") a few tomato plants that you most enjoy the taste of, you should not replace all tomato plants with your favourite. You are setting your tomato population up to be an incestuous royal family, where only the "finest" tomatoes are permitted to exist, and their offspring will suffer the horrors of unnatural selection (such as the entire family succumbing to the same kryptonite disease).

There is so much in this world that we do not understand, not only about the shapes and forms of living things, but also about their temperaments and spirit. When we try something like creating new life-forms and then turn them loose in the environment, disastrous side effects are certain to occur—we just do not know exactly what these side effects will be yet.
p. 55

Fukuoka suggests that both traditional (ie rice farmers in Japan) and modern (ie industrial cash-crop farmers) farmers could benefit from allowing nature to take the reins. Since agriculture became based on turning the soil, we have clung to the reins not knowing how to steer the horse. Etymylogically, "agriculture" derives from "cultivate" which means "to till or turn over soil", which marked the beginning of our deviance by firing the bacteria and worms who had worked the soil for millenia.

In the end, it will require some courage and perhaps a leap of faith for people to abandon what they think they know.
p. 57

We cannot know which diseases are our own creation so long as we do not have a benchmark of people living in accordance with nature. Unfortunately, there are few cultures surviving to this day that I'm aware of which could serve as a benchmark. However, we do know that the adoption of the western (American) lifestyle and globalisation leads to an increase in the prevalence of several diseases, like heart disease, eczema, allergies and schizophrenia, to name a few. [^1: How Not to Die, find page number].

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?
p. 59

In Nature, There Are No Beneficial or Harmful insects
During the years I have watched the development of my natural farm, I have seen little damage done to fruits, vegetables, or grains. The crops have grown vigorously and lived natural lives without withering and dying prematurely. That does not mean it is pest- or insect-free. If you looked closely, you would observe many insects on the fruit trees and many diseased leaves. The damage they cause makes up no more than 5 percent, but that amount must be allocated to provide food for birds and insects and to thin out the weakest individuals. Plants, people, butterflies, and dragonflies appear to be separate, individual living things, yet each is an equal and important participant in nature. They share the same mind and life spirit. They form a single living organism. 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.
p. 59

seeking to be healed. In the desert, you can hear the sound of the wind and the sand. It is a sad, dry sound, a whispering, a kind of mournful music. The sorrowful braying of a donkey I heard in the African savanna still lingers in my ears. Wailing and squealing, it was like the cry of a child on the verge of death. The desert is also yearning to be healed. I feel that
p. 62

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.
p. 63

There is nothing for people to gain and nothing for them to lose. As long as people lived according to natural law, they could die peacefully at any time like withering grasses.
p. 63

Fukuoka alludes to us having bullshit products, much akin to Bullshit Jobs. While I don't suppose we have to throw out all culture, I do think we'd all be wise to search for joy and meaning in what nature offers us first and foremost. If you're not into bird-watching or hiking and the world collapses, you're going to have a bad time. Reduce your dependency on the world's complex economy for joy, and find it in the community and world around you. It would be wise to diversify your joy portfolio.

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. Economies that aim at production and consumption of unnaecessary products are themselves meaningless. 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. But this has become increasingly difficult in the wake of commodity agriculture and the global dominance of agribusiness. Indeed, one can ask of capitalism: “Why are human beings not satisfied, as are the birds, with what they can glean? Why do they earn their sustenance by the sweat of their brows and suffer so?”13
p. 66

Market-manipulation, as well as laws that permit and enforce monopolies, is a major cause of the economic factors which have steered our agricultural industry into such destructive, anti-natural practices. Another cause is our own desires, which Fukuoka talks about in The One Straw Revolution.

When I visited Europe, for example, I found that fruit was extremely expensive in Vienna, Austria. When I asked about this, I was told that the Italian farmers were refusing to grow fruit, so the price was high for what little fruit was available. The next day, when I went on to Italy, I saw a bulldozer destroying beautiful peach trees in an orchard south of Milan. When I asked the farmer why he was doing that, he said the people in Austria would not buy the fruit. The reason, of course, was that the price was too high in Vienna, causing demand to fall and the price paid to the Italian orchardist to drop. The farmer said he was following the orders of the local agricultural cooperative to “limit production,” and so he was taking out his orchard. The same day, a French newspaper published a photograph of French farmers, at the border with Italy, overturning five or six trucks loaded with grapes in order to prevent their importation. Consumers in the French cities at the time were buying imported fruit and wine at high prices, undercutting their own farmers’ understandable concern about the low prices they were getting for their produce. This sort of thing happens because the commercial firms that stand in the position of middlemen can manipulate prices according to the information they release. If they tell consumers that prices are high because the supply of fruit is low, and tell the producers that sales are poor, then everything goes well for the middleman broker because he has control over the cash flow. Under this system no one knows the truth. Those businessmen and financiers who know and control information about the true production and cost figures determine the prices, always to their own advantage. I call this the money-sucking octopus economy.
p. 67

Not all human invention is necessarily futile or unwelcome in nature. But I hold immediate skepticism for any farming equipment invented since the industrial revolution, and have active curiosity for indigenous practices; if a practice has persisted for thousands or tens of years, which one would you trust more not to damage the environment and undermine your farm's viability?

The same agrarian landscape that could be seen in Japan until just recently still exists in the farming villages of many parts of Asia, Africa, and India. In fact, one of the most common farming tools still used in many Indian villages today is the water buffalo cart. I sensed great pride in the words of a farmer who boasted to me that the design of this cart had not been changed or improved upon in the last three thousand years. At the foundation of the so-called underdeveloped countries is a proud agrarian ethic. If these local economies were to imitate the developed countries, with their model of concentrated power and resources, the common people would be demeaned even as the country’s profiteers temporarily prospered. These dignified farmers I have met see the skyscrapers of the developed nations as the tombstones of the human race.
p. 70

The Japanese government tried to resolve the mysterious death of forests by spraying a pesticide against nematodes, but Fukuoka found this to be insufficient. The root (ha!) cause is not the nematodes, but probably soil acidification as a result of air pollution affecting the rain. Attempts to intervene before we are confident of the source of the problem is destructive at best, and creating larger problems at worst. The behaviour of the Japanese government mirrors the Phasmid conspiracy that Bill talks about in Introduction to Permaculture.

I have not yet reached a conclusion, but in relation to the cause, the results of my research point in an entirely different direction than does the theory of the Office of Forestry. The source of the problem is not a troublesome nematode, but rather that the matsutake fungi are dying, and as a result the pines have grown weak. Filamentous fungi have invaded their trunks, and finally, nematodes that feed on those fungi have invaded the pines. The nematodes and beetles are not the original culprits. They are doing nothing more than clearing away the corpses of the dead and dying trees. At the very least, they are only accessories to the crime, while the ringleader lies underground. But even if my theory is correct, if smog and acid rain turn out to be the source of the problem, then we are nearly back where we started from.
p. 73

This is akin to the suggestion in Introduction to Permaculture to revegetate ridgelines, which massively determine precipitation and thereby rainfall in the area.

The Aswan Dam on the Nile has already been built and soon there will be similar large dams on the Yellow River in China, and the Narmada River in India. These may serve as expedient, short-term measures, but they will turn into long-range hundred-year mistakes. The main reason water is disappearing from the rivers is that rain has stopped falling. The first step we must take in countering desertification is not to redirect the flow of rivers, but to cause rain to fall again. This involves revegetation. Trying to revegetate the deserts by using the scarce water remaining in the rivers is putting the cart before the horse. No, we must first revegetate vast stretches of desert at one time, thereby causing rain clouds to rise from the earth. There is now a plan to construct more than two hundred dams along the course of the Narmada River, the second holiest river in India after the Ganges. But when the dammed waters rise, it will submerge the forests, destroying the livelihoods of the people who live there, and millions will be driven to the deserts surrounding the river. This influx of people will put greater pressure on scant desert resources, and with the loss of the forests, the deserts will grow even larger.15 The Indian government needs to decide whether it is better to carry out their hundred-year national plan of building hydroelectric power plants, or to revegetate the desert and bring the earth back to life.
p. 74

We create technology at great expense, when if we understood the functions of plants and combinations better, we could use nature to do the job for us at very little expense. Why build a water filtration membrane when you can use plants to do it for you? I saw many springs in the Peaks of the Balkans hikes which just seemed to tap a water source buried within a hill, and the water was some of the most delicious I've ever tasted. Naturally filtered water absolutely shits on modern filtered water in the city, and is virtually free. I remember that Barir from Pedesaan farm mentioned that one of his colleages at his permaculture school devised a series of ponds through which he let flow polluted groundwater and out came drinkable water.

Methods such as those used in Saudi Arabia, Israel, and other places of filtering seawater with a synthetic resin membrane, removing the salt to turn the seawater into fresh water, circulating it, and thus creating farms in the middle of the desert, are also nothing more than short-term measures that require tremendous amounts of energy.
p. 76

Why use a mechanical pump to access water deep underground for irrigation when you can use a species like acacia to bring it up instead? At Rayna's farm, I saw some trees which were they which had little saplings shooting up within a 10 metre radius, which suggests they were pumping water in the arid landscape for other plants to use.

Sure, you can create excellent fields in an arid area if you pump water from underground and sprinkle it on the desert, as they do on American pivot farms. But because irrigation water that has been applied in this way quickly evaporates, the salt is precipitated out, and builds up in the surface layers of the soil. To prevent this salinization, the salts from the irrigation water are drained into rivers or nearby “dump sites,” causing toxic conditions there instead.
p. 76

Another example of why Manmade irrigation is fraught with disaster.

Some people think that to increase the vegetation on earth, it is best to plant trees that mature quickly. Today various types of fast-growing trees such as eucalyptus are being planted all over the world. These trees, however, typically require a lot of water when they are young, so a strenuous effort would have to be made to water the trees properly. When trees are watered only to a shallow depth, the soil becomes compacted. Then the water cannot percolate deeply into the ground, roots cannot extend, and in the end you might as well have poured water on heated rocks. For this reason many of the trees wither and die.
p. 76

Nature is more than the sum of its parts, and modern science only seeks to understand the parts.

Scientific revegetation measures often consider only one route to healing the desert. As it is now, the various scattered, localized efforts to halt desertification end up as half-baked measures administered by government officials. The problem is that the water, soil, and plants are considered separately, with each being advanced by a separate department. A permanent solution will never come about in this way. 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. Although the climate and other conditions are different, I believe that this basic method will also work in revegetating the deserts.
p. 77

Although the surface of the ground in Europe and the United States appears to be covered with a lovely green, it is only the imitation green of a managed landscape. Beneath the surface, the soil is becoming depleted due to the mistaken agricultural practices of the last two thousand years. Much of Africa is devoid of vegetation today, while just a few hundred years ago it was covered by deep forests. According to the Statistical Research Bureau in India, the vegetation there has also disappeared rapidly over the past forty-five or fifty years and now covers less than 10 percent of the land’s surface. When I went to Nepal, officials lamented the fact that in the last twenty years the Himalayas have become bald, treeless mountains.
p. 79

My measures for countering desertification are exactly the same as the basic natural farming method. One could refer to it as a natural farming revolution whose goal is to return the earth to the paradise it once was.
p. 80

I suggested that deforestation and the change from the perennial bunchgrasses that once covered the plains to annuals such as foxtail and wild oats contributed to the decrease in rainfall. “Rain doesn’t only fall from the sky,” I suggested. “It also falls up from below.” The vegetation, especially trees, actually causes the rain to fall.
p. 81

#example #hope In only a week, Fukuoka was able to start a vegetable garden in a desertified area of California.

After broadcasting the seeds of various Japanese vegetables amid the dried grasses and mowing them down with an improvised sickle, I brought water from the spring near the top of the hill by plastic pipe and sprinkled it fairly deeply over the area. I thought the few days until the water evaporated would tell the tale. Eventually, green began to grow among the brown grass. Of course, it was the green of the weedy foxtails. As I expected, when the water had disappeared by the end of a week’s time, the grass that had sprouted up began to wither in the heat, but in its midst Japanese pumpkin, cucumbers, tomatoes, okra, daikon, and corn began to flourish. The center of the field turned into a vegetable garden. The stubborn foxtails sprouted, then withered and became mulch, and in their place, vegetables had grown up. We should revegetate California. We should wake up the seeds of weeds that are lying dormant during summer by giving them water, and then let them die before they can make more seeds. At the same time, it would be good if the state government would broadcast seeds of perennial grasses from the air in clay pellets.
p. 82

The ability to grow food is foundational to sovereignty. Another example of how Capitalism and Colonialism destroys people's sovereignty.

Also, when traveling 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.
p. 84

There are successful examples of animal agriculture, but they involve people moving with their herds, rather than forcing "livestock" to eat within penned land defined by property-centric society.

This was a deathblow to the nomadic people. On the surface, the old grazing patterns appeared to be random, but in fact they were bound by strict tribal rules. With the arrival of national parks, this tribal system broke down. In the old days, the nomads, along with their domestic animals, would live in a green valley for a set time, say, three months. When the grass that fed the animals grew scarce, the tribe would move to another location. They would leave before the vegetation lost its ability to recover. No one would allow their animals to graze in those areas for six months or a year. When the grass had recovered and grown luxuriant again, members of another tribe would move in and start living there. This sort of practice was an unspoken arrangement that was strictly obeyed. But once national boundaries were drawn and parks created, the nomadic peoples had to travel long distances to go around them. Because of the inconvenience, they began staying in one place for a long time. When this happened, fodder grew scarce, the trees used for fuel were all cut down, and the supply of water became exhausted. When food, clothing, and shelter are restricted, conflicts occur, and people begin struggling with one another. This condition was often used to maintain political control by those in power.
p. 86

Teaching people to farm is an effective means of liberation. This makes me want to Make a "fuck you industrial food" seedbomb for people to throw in their gardens.

he was having greater success teaching people that they could achieve independence by starting a natural farm than he had by spreading the political message of the independence movement.
p. 86

The ability to grow food is foundational to sovereignty

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.
p. 85

Manmade irrigation is fraught with disaster

Modern agriculture in the desert is based on the idea that you can grow anything if you just have water. Every day they pump water up from the rivers, run it into irrigation ditches, and water the fields in succession. The large modern farms sponsored by foreign aid all follow this practice. As I had expected, all the modern farms I saw had failed. They had turned to salt fields and had been abandoned. I advised people, on the contrary, to use as little water as possible in the desert. I encouraged them to plant acacia trees with a mixture of vegetables and grains such as deccan grass (Echinochloa colona) and millet. I also suggested that they include some poisonous plants that goats will not eat, and to plant trees that are effective at bringing water up from underground. Among the trees, they should sow grains and vegetables.
p. 88

#practical Premature germination. You can reduce weeding (specifically, pesky grasses or genuinely harmful species) by watering weeds before the peak heat of summer, causing them to germinate and die.

#practical Soil temperature is moderated heavily by ground-cover.

With a healthy ground cover, the soil temperature is moderated to a great degree. This is one of three types of redwood trees, the others being the coast redwood and the giant sequoia. The Metasequoia, or dawn redwood, was thought to be extinct until a few groves were discovered in southern China in 1944. It is now a popular landscape tree widely available in plant nurseries. The grasslands of California originally consisted of perennial grasses. These plants have deep and extensive root systems and stay green all summer. When the Spanish introduced grazing sheep and cattle in the late 1700s, they also brought the seeds of annual grasses such as rye and oats. The grazing animals selectively ate the more nutritious native perennials, giving the annuals a big reproductive advantage. The native grasses were supplanted by the annuals in just a few generations, leaving the soil depleted and much drier. This technique of watering annual weeds to get them to sprout and then wither before they can set new seeds—known as premature germination—has been used by organic farmers for many years to control weeds. When the weeds grow up, they shade and cool the ground long enough for the vegetables to get off to a good start, then they act as mulch for the vegetable garden, cooling the ground and conserving moisture. When the autumn rains arrive, fewer weeds come up since they were “tricked” into germinating too soon. Mr. Fukuoka is suggesting that this technique could also be useful in broad-scale rehabilitation for establishing trees, shrubs, and perennial grasses.
p. 88

#practical Egyptian clover and alfalfa are great ground-cover. Also, restoring bacteria is key for restoring soil health; they will take nutrients locked up in hard clay and make it available to plants growing in the soil.

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, phosphorus, 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. In the desert, high temperatures from radiant heat are of greater concern than lack of water. This, too, will change if the surface of the soil is covered with vegetation. With a healthy ground cover, the soil temperature is moderated to a great degree.
p. 88

Ancient cililisations can point towards once very fertile soil.

People have been living on the site of my natural farm since the Stone Age, and in ancient times the area was covered with an ancient forest of at least eight species of Metasequoia. It is said to have been a center of local culture about a thousand years ago. The area could be compared to the Silk Road in the way the culture flourished until the earth was eventually worn down, and the vibrant culture with it. The soil of this once fertile forestland eventually eroded down to the clay subsoil.
p. 91

Intuition is the key to understanding nature.

And so, while my journeys in later life have been inspired by my dream of revegetating the desert, 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. Unfortunately, there are some places where the devastation is so bad that nature will have a difficult time recovering on its own—it lacks even the seeds that would form the basis of its recovery. The only work for people to do in such places is to gather the seeds and microorganisms nature needs and sow them there.
p. 92

#example of Natural farming, Ms Aveliw through the Magsaysay Foundation in the Philippines.

A good example is the natural farm of Ms. Aveliw, a woman who works for the Magsaysay Foundation in the Philippines. She read The One-Straw Revolution, did practical research and observation on her property for almost ten years, then set up her natural farm in four years mainly by scattering seeds and planting trees. She has created a true paradise. There is an assortment of fruit trees such as banana, papaya, guava, and durian, and some coffee trees. Beneath them is a thick ground cover of perennials and green manure. Orchids bloom everywhere, birds fly about, and fish swim in the ponds. The soil of the Philippine islands is rather poor, and, as a result of reckless deforestation, you cannot find anything like a true tropical rain forest anywhere. So how was she able to develop this abundant jungle of fruit trees in so few years? The secret element was the harmony that existed between Ms. Aveliw and nature. If we list the things necessary for plants to grow, then sunlight, nutrients, water, and air are sufficient to create a paradise. All the elements are created by nature itself. Even without instruments, nature is capable of performing a splendid symphony. If you believe in intuitive insight, the road will open on its own accord.
p. 92

Natural farming is the most energy efficient way of farming. According to Introduction to Permaculture, traditional Chinese farmers produced three calories of food for every calorie that went into farming.

Mechanization and the heavy use of agricultural chemicals are not only ruining the land, but also causing the ruin of farming communities around the world. In addition, 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.
p. 94

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.
p. 95

I learned that we produce an abundance of shrimp by cutting their eyes off, which causes them to breed excessively. Probably because they think they're going to fucking die. Industrial food relies on torture and environmental destruction to survive.

In order to protect natural fisheries, we ought to go back to catching fish by hand. Fish will not become more abundant if we continue to develop and apply new technologies for cultivating shrimp, sea bream, and eel. Eventually such methods will lead to the collapse of the modern fishing industry and the seas themselves.
p. 96

There is a place for animals in natural farming, but they need to be able to move and graze as they please.

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 here and 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 valleys, 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.
p. 96

This is a possibly polarising idea, but I think it's practical. Fukuoka is suggesting that due to

Without questioning whether they were native or non-native, I would mix the seeds of all plants—forest trees, fruit trees, perennials, vegetables, grasses, and legumes—as well as ferns, mosses, and lichens, and sow them all at once across the desert. I would even include fungi, bacteria, and other soil microorganisms. If it were possible, I would scatter black forest soil as well. Fertile soil is a valuable trove of microorganisms and their spores. In extreme deserts, this would be the most economical means of reintroducing them. It would also be good to include seeds of the native plants that grew before desertification occurred in California and India, heat-resistant plants in Africa and Thailand, and salt-resistant plants in Somalia.
p. 97

#practical Example of what Fukuoka would put in a Seed bomb.

I would encase these seeds and microorganisms in clay pellets22 and sow them on a broad scale. These pellets protect the seeds from animals and insects and maintain the water necessary for germination. They also serve as survival capsules, providing nutrients after germination. To make the pellets hard, I use lime, bittern, seaweed paste and other binding compounds. To make them resistant to insects, I mix in herbs such as derris (Derris elliptica), Japanese star anise (Illicium anisatum), Japanese andromeda (Pieris spp.), lacquer tree (Rhus verniciflua), and Japanese bead tree (Chinaberry, Melia azedarach). Then I would broadcast the seeds in the clay pellets and wait for rain. If there were a squall or thunderstorm, the seeds would germinate and grow very quickly. If a large area became green, even temporarily, it would protect against radiant heat, and the soil temperature would drop. Cooling the soil is an important step toward success. I would do this resigned to the fact that if a drought followed the rain, a majority of the plants might die. But even if most died, some of the plants, especially those that could withstand heat and could thrive with little water, would survive.
p. 97

Native plants might not survive globalisation, but we should give them a chance.

I have said that it would be good to include seeds and spores from all over the world in the mix. There are several reasons why. The world has become smaller. People travel freely everywhere, carrying seeds and microorganisms with them. The reality is that the plants and animals of the world have already been thoroughly mixed together, and that will continue. Plant quarantine systems have rapidly become obsolete. It seems to me that the time has come to abolish these quarantine regulations entirely. 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.
p. 98

#practical Plant-based Irrigation.

If we plant every kind of plant, starting from the area around the river, the underground water will filter up the roots of the plants, and gradually a protective forest will develop. This is what I call plant-based irrigation. For example, if you plant acacia trees sixty feet apart, in five or six years the trees will reach a height of thirty feet and the roots will have spread at least thirty feet in every direction, carrying the water with them. As the soil fertility increases and humus accumulates, the soil’s ability to retain water will increase. Although the movement of underground water is slow, gradually it will move from one tree to the next, and they will act as water bearers.
p. 100

#practical You can do effective Irrigation by utilising any natural stream on the property.

A more appropriate method of irrigation would use the natural flow of water as much as possible. Large rivers have tributaries that flow downhill, and the tributaries are fed by smaller streams. If ditches are made from these small streams, water can be run directly into the fields. Solutions like this are simple, effective, and appropriate. They allow us to live peacefully within nature without going to a lot of trouble.
p. 111

Human selection destroys nature.

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.
p. 102

This touches on a beautiful idea from the book, which is that Everything in nature is useful. Even species which did not survive a blight or insect are useful; they are an attempt to find the most suited species for the current time and place. This idea actually brought me to tears, because it suggests that all beings have intrinsic worth.

It seems logical for people to choose something special from nature and use it for the benefit of human beings, but when they do this, they make a big mistake. Taking one element from nature, in the name of creating something valuable economically (cash crops, for example), gives that element special value. It also implies that other elements have a lesser value. When human beings plant only “useful” trees with high cash value in the desert, and cut down the undergrowth referring to those plants as “weeds,” many plant species are lost. Often they are the very plants that are enriching and holding the soil together. There is no good or bad among the life-forms on earth. Each has its role, is necessary, and has equal value. This idea may seem simplistic and unscientific, but it is the basis for my plan to regenerate landscapes all over the world.
p. 102

#example The Tagore Society for Rural Development in India had extensive collaboration with Fukuoka on Natural farming.

called upon the help of the Tagore Society (for Rural Development)
p. 104

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. On this point, Japanese scientists and farmers have the same belief, considering this form of agriculture to be “advanced.” Some actually consider the soil to be a nuisance.
p. 120

The atmosphere at these farmers’ markets seemed decidedly Asian to me. I think Americans feel isolated somehow by their individualism and enjoy the congenial, openhearted atmosphere usually associated with Eastern cultures. Another thing I could not overlook is how rapidly the natural foods movement is spreading across the United States. This is largely due to the efforts of Herman and Cornelia Aihara, in Oroville, California, who first invited me to the United States in 1979, and also to Michio Kushi, in Boston. When I came for this second visit, I could see that country-style Japanese food and other Asian cuisines had taken hold throughout the country as the standard for a delicious and healthy diet.
p. 122

#example In the pacific northwest, there are heirloom seed collectors.

Throughout the Pacific Northwest, I met many groups and individuals carrying out research that is generally considered unimportant to the general public. They are collecting the seeds of heirloom varieties of vegetables and other food-producing plants, along with others that are important to the ecology of the region even if they have no apparent commercial value. They are propagating these plants, collecting the seeds, and sharing them with other farmers and backyard gardeners. This is a very important way to preserve useful plants that otherwise would be lost to future generations.
p. 128

Ancient cililisation in India practised no-tillage agriculture.

The first person was from India. He said that my ideas were similar to Gandhi’s, and that the ancient Indian texts confirm that no-tillage agriculture was practiced there long, long ago. He concluded by voicing approval for my farming methods and ideas.
p. 137

Masanobu Fukuoka says himself here, with great sadness, that Natural farming is what indigenous people practiced since long ago. The fact that he believes this tribesman may be the only person he met in his life who truly understood him speaks volumes.

One person said, “Our teacher must be calling out to you, saying ‘Let’s plant seeds in the desert together.’” Jokingly I answered, “It looks like a comfortable place. It might not be bad to lie down there with him.” But as soon as I had said this, I burst into an uncontrollable flood of tears. Yes, it was true. The man lying there had been a sower of seeds in the desert. When I thought how he might be the only person I would ever meet who understood me, who would live with me and die with me, I stood rooted to the spot, heedless of the tears pouring down my cheeks. #quote #hope
p. 140

#practical Bury dried bamboo in the ground to increase water and aeration capacity.

When dried, the stalks are light and easy to carry. Bamboo decomposes slowly when buried, so it is very effective for holding water and air in the soil. The organic matter produced as a result of its decomposition is wonderful for improving the structure of the soil.
p. 146

#practical Once you have about 30cm of topsoil, you have ten years of good growing left (without fertiliser).

In about twelve inches of topsoil, there are enough nutrients to sustain an orchard for ten years without adding fertilizer. If you have three feet of rich earth, the orchard can be sustained for approximately thirty years. If we can retain and maintain the richness of natural forest soil by using a soil-building combination of plants, including nitrogen-fixing plants such as white clover, beans, and vetch, then no-fertilizer cultivation is possible indefinitely.
p. 148

#practical Soil compaction causes root rot because it pushes the air out, encourages anaerobic conditions.

Because the large, heavy machinery puts pressure on the soil, the soil becomes compacted. Groundwater will collect and stagnate. This creates anaerobic conditions, which cause the roots to decay, leading to damage from disease and insects. When a field is created by using heavy machinery, the ridges around the fields become hard, the microorganisms in the soil change or die out, and the soil atrophies.
p. 149

#practical Another of Fukuoka's Seed bomb recipes, this time in detail. Check out the book for more, it's in the appendix.

Making Clay Seed Pellets for Use in Revegetation
p. 151,

#practical Seed bomb components for protection from common pests, with no need for fencing.

Derris root (used against beetles), Japanese star anise (goats), Japanese andromeda (cows), Japanese bead tree (small insects), sumac, and so on, will protect seeds in the desert, before and after germination.
p. 154

#practical How to cultivate fungi. Check out the book for more.

This natural culture medium is suitable not only for cultivating matsutake fungi, but for cultivating microorganisms in general.
p. 157