MASANOBU FUKUOKA

Ignorance, hatred and greed are killing nature.

There is no time in modern agriculture for a farmer to write a poem or compose a song.

As we kill nature, we are killing ourselves, and God incarnate as the world as well.

The simple hearth of the small farm is the true center of our universe.

The final principle of natural farming is NO PESTICIDES. Nature is in perfect balance when left alone.

Life on a small farm might seem primitive, but by living such a life we become able to discover the Great Path. I believe that one who deeply respects his neighborhood and everyday world in which he lives will be shown the greatest of all worlds.

There is no one so great as the one who does not try to accomplish anything

The increasing desolation of nature, the exhaustion of resources, the uneasiness and disintegration of the human spirit, all have been brought about by humanity's trying to accomplish something.

By raising tall trees for windbreaks, citrus underneath, and a green manure cover down on the surface, I have found a way to take it easy and let the orchard manage itself!

Before researchers become researches they should become philosophers.

I started natural farming after the war with just one small plot, but gradually I acquired additional acreage by taking over surrounding pieces of abandoned land and caring for them by hand.

I believe that even 'returning-to-nature' and anti pollution activities, no matter how commendable, are not moving toward a genuine solution if they are carried out solely in reaction to the over development of the present age.

As far as my planting program goes, I simply broadcast rye and barley seed on separate fields in the fall . . . while the rice in those areas is still standing. A few weeks after that I harvest the rice, and then spread its straw back over the fields as mulch.

The healing of the land and the purification of the human spirit is the same process.

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.

The only sensible approach to disease and insect control, I think, is to grow sturdy crops in a healthy environment.

I wonder how it is that people's philosophies have come to spin faster than the changing seasons.

Giving up your ego is the shortest way to unification with nature.

Of course, I have made mistakes . . . just as every grower does. However, I never really think of them as mistakes!

The irony is that science has served only to show how small human knowledge is.

When it is understood that one loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them, the essence of natural farming will be realized. The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.

When a decision is made to cope with the symptoms of a problem, it is generally assumed that the corrective measures will solve the problem itself. They seldom do. Engineers cannot seem to get this through their heads. These countermeasures are all based on too narrow a definition of what is wrong. Human measures and countermeasures proceed from limited scientific truth and judgment. A true solution can never come about in this way.

Unless people can become natural people, there can be neither natural farming nor natural food.

The real path to natural farming requires that a person know what unaltered nature is, so that he or she can instinctively understand what needs to be done - and what must not be done - to work in harmony with its processes.

If a farmer does abandon his or her "tame" fields completely to nature, mistakes and destruction are inevitable.