By Megan Rulli
One Straw Revolution:
An Introduction to Natural Farming
Masanobu Fukuoka
I recommend this book to anyone who believes in nature’s bounty.
One Straw Revolution is a modest installment which is aimed at challenging some of agriculture’s (organic and conventional alike) most fundamental assumptions. Fukuoka was an agricultural researcher in Japan for many years, but was unsatisfied with the laboratory setting as a starting point for applicable farming knowledge. He left and has dedicated over thirty years developing a technique of farming which requires the least amount of inputs – from farmers and the land alike. He contends that scientists, their research, and their resulting published conclusions, are limited by the scientific method which can only look at one variable at a time – in contrast, in the natural world there are infinite and unique factors which unite in the form of living crops. Fukuoka gracefully explores such natural truths as the interconnectivity and basic goal of fertility in life’s forms.
Beyond this point, Fukuoka advocates what he terms natural farming, or do-nothing farming. The remarkable simplicity of Fukuoka’s methods invokes that ancient human intuition to eat simply and in season, to look around at what is growing and incorporate it into your life. Within this text he delineates radically simple agricultural and food diet techniques, with an air of zen or other eastern philosophy that will describe details one moment and the next urge the reader to throw out the discoveries of the rational mind. Images of nothingness abound.
Without digging in deeply, I will recount here and end with his four principles of natural farming. The first is NO CULTIVATION, secondly NO CHEMICAL FERTILIZER OR PREPARED COMPOST, third NO WEEDING BY TILLAGE OR HERBICIDES, and finally NO DEPENDENCE ON CHEMICALS. This book is simple and challenging, shallow and deep – read it, and let’s have some discourse.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Book Review: A Patch of Eden, America’s Inner-City Gardens, By H. Patricia Hynes
By Nina Berryman
For those of you interested in learning more about urban gardening across the nation, here is a book for you! H. Patricia Hynes takes the reader into plant filled nooks and crannies in the neighborhoods of Harlem, San Francisco, Chicago and our very own Philadelphia. She interviews gardeners and neighbors of community gardens, painting a picture of how they came to be and recording the transformation they have brought to a particular space in a city. Her stories are interlaced with history lessons about our country and its diverse neighborhoods and cultures. She concludes the book with a discussion about women’s relationship with gardens throughout the history of agriculture. This book is less about gardens and more about ordinary people who want to improve their neighborhoods. In the Philadelphia chapter, she takes snapshots of Las Parcelas, Project Rainbow, the USDA Urban gardening Program, Glenwood Green Acres, and Philadelphia Green. Never heard of some of these organizations? I suggest you pick up the book, then go out into the city and see them for yourself!
For those of you interested in learning more about urban gardening across the nation, here is a book for you! H. Patricia Hynes takes the reader into plant filled nooks and crannies in the neighborhoods of Harlem, San Francisco, Chicago and our very own Philadelphia. She interviews gardeners and neighbors of community gardens, painting a picture of how they came to be and recording the transformation they have brought to a particular space in a city. Her stories are interlaced with history lessons about our country and its diverse neighborhoods and cultures. She concludes the book with a discussion about women’s relationship with gardens throughout the history of agriculture. This book is less about gardens and more about ordinary people who want to improve their neighborhoods. In the Philadelphia chapter, she takes snapshots of Las Parcelas, Project Rainbow, the USDA Urban gardening Program, Glenwood Green Acres, and Philadelphia Green. Never heard of some of these organizations? I suggest you pick up the book, then go out into the city and see them for yourself!
Friday, February 19, 2010
Book Review! One Man’s Meat by E.B. White
By Nina Berryman
Interested in reading about agriculture, but tired of dense, fact-heavy books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Fast Food Nation? While these books are great (and I completely recommend them if you haven’t read them), I have another suggestion for those of you looking for a more entertaining read. One Man’s Meat by E.B. White is a light, but informative book about Mr. White’s trials and tribulations starting a farm on the coast of Maine. The book is a collection of journal excerpts throughout the year. Engaging and witty, White provides philosophical insight into the love and frustration necessary to start a farm, as well as provides commentary on the state of the world in the 1940’s. He reflects upon his decision to move from the city into the country and offers amusing cultural comparisons between urban and rural life.
Interested in reading about agriculture, but tired of dense, fact-heavy books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Fast Food Nation? While these books are great (and I completely recommend them if you haven’t read them), I have another suggestion for those of you looking for a more entertaining read. One Man’s Meat by E.B. White is a light, but informative book about Mr. White’s trials and tribulations starting a farm on the coast of Maine. The book is a collection of journal excerpts throughout the year. Engaging and witty, White provides philosophical insight into the love and frustration necessary to start a farm, as well as provides commentary on the state of the world in the 1940’s. He reflects upon his decision to move from the city into the country and offers amusing cultural comparisons between urban and rural life.
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