Masanobu Fukuoka: Japanese Organic Farmer
(Page 7 of 13)
July/August 1982
By the Mother Earth News staff.
To plant my vegetable crops, I simply cut a swath in the weed cover and put out the seeds. There's no need to top them with soil . . . I just lay the cut plants back over them as a natural mulch. Usually the resurgent weeds have to be trimmed back two or three times afterward to give the seedlings a head start, but sometimes just once is enough. Vegetables grown in this way are stronger than most people think. In fact, you can raise produce wherever there's a varied and vigorous growth of weeds . . . but to be successful, it is important that you become familiar with the yearly cycle of the indigenous weeds and grasses and learn what kinds of vegetables will best match them.
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PLOWBOY: Have you encountered any really serious problems with disease or insect pests over the decades that you've been practicing natural farming?
FUKUOKA: Since I turned the fields back to their natural state, I can't say I've had any really difficult problems with insects or disease. Even when it looked as if something had gone wrong and the crops would soon be devastated, nature always seemed to bail me out in the end!
Of course, I have made mistakes . . . just as every grower does. However, I never really think of them as mistakes! Back in the beginning, for example, when 70% of a field was overgrown and unproductive and 20 to 30% was extremely productive, I saw my limited harvest as a success. I figured that if a small percentage of the field did produce, I could eventually make the rest of the acreage do just as well. My neighbors would never have been satisfied with a field like that . . . but I just viewed the "mistake" as a hint or a lesson. One of the most important discoveries I made in those early years was that to succeed at natural farming, you have to get rid of your expectations. Such "products" of the mind are often incorrect or unrealistic . . . and can lead you to think you've made a mistake if they're not met.
PLOWBOY: What about the wild grasses and weeds that grow right among your crops: Don't they ever threaten to get out of control?
FUKUOKA: Instead of relying on herbicides or mechanical cultivation to control weeds, I've always used legumes and other cover crops to limit the spread of the less helpful plants. I also throw straw on the fields as a mulch that will both discourage weeds and let the soil retain enough moisture to germinate seeds in the autumn dry season.
PLOWBOY: It all sounds like the ideal low-labor farming method. But what about the yields of your crops? Is it true that they compare favorably with those of conventional farms?
FUKUOKA: In the beginning my expectations and desires were not great . . . and my yields were not great, either! But as the condition of the soil stabilized over time and the fields returned to their natural state, my crop output began to rise steadily. I never noticed any dramatic changes, but eventually I found that I could grow rice without plowing or flooding the field all summer long, and still produce as much as the other farmers did with all their machinery and chemicals . . . sometimes more. My production has now stabilized at about 1,300 pounds, or 22 bushels, per quarter-acre for both winter grain and rice. That is close to the highest in Japan!
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