1. AILING AGRICULTURE IN AN AILING AGE
1. Man Cannot Know Nature
Man prides himself on being the only creature on earth with the ability to think. He
claims to know himself and the natural world, and believes he can use nature as he
pleases. He is convinced, moreover, that intelligence is strength, that anything he desires
is within his reach.
As he has forged ahead, making new advances in the natural sciences and dizzily
expanding his materialistic culture, man has grown estranged from nature and ended by
building a civilization all his own, like a wayward child rebelling against its mother.
But all his vast cities and frenetic activity have brought him are empty, dehumanized
pleasures and the destruction of his living environment through the abusive exploitation
of nature.
Harsh retribution for straying from nature and plundering its riches has begun to
appear in the form of depleted natural resources and food crises, throwing a dark shadow
over the future of mankind. Having finally grown aware of the gravity of the situation,
man has begun to think seriously about what should be done. But unless he is willing to
undertake the most fundamental self-reflection he will be unable to steer away from a
path of certain destruction.
Alienated from nature, human existence becomes a void, the wellspring of life and
spiritual growth gone utterly dry. Man grows ever more ill and weary in the midst of his
curious civilization that is but a struggle over a tiny bit of time and space.
Leave Nature Alone
Man has always deluded himself into thinking that he knows nature and is free to use
it as he wishes to build his civilizations. But nature cannot be explained or expanded
upon. As an organic whole, it not subject to man’s classifications; nor does it tolerate
dissection and analysis. Once broken down, nature cannot be returned to its original state.
All that remains is an empty skeleton devoid of the true essence of living nature. This
skeletal image only serves to confuse man and lead him further astray.
Scientific reasoning also is of no avail in helping man understand nature and add to its
creations. Nature as perceived by man through discriminating knowledge is a falsehood.
Man can never truly know even a single leaf or a single handful of earth. Unable to fully
comprehend plant life and soil, he sees these only through the filter of human intellect.
Although he may seek to return to the bosom of nature or use it to his advantage, man
only touches one tiny part of nature—a dead portion at that—and has no affinity with the
main body of living nature. He is, in effect, merely toying with delusions.
Man is but an arrogant fool who vainly believes that he knows all of nature and can
achieve anything he sets his mind to. Seeing neither the logic nor order inherent in nature,
he has selfishly appropriated it to his own ends and destroyed it. The world today is in
such a sad state because man has not felt compelled to reflect upon the dangers of his
high-handed ways.
The earth is an organically interwoven community of plants, animals, and microorganisms. When seen through man’s eyes, it appears either as a model of the strong
consuming the weak or of coexistence and mutual benefit. Yet there are food chains and
cycles of matter; there is endless transformation without birth or death. Although this flux
of matter and the cycles in the biosphere can be perceived only through direct intuition,
our unswerving faith in the omnipotence of science has led us to analyze and study these
phenomena, raining down destruction upon the world of living things and throwing
nature as we see it into disarray.
A case in point is the application of toxic pesticides to apple trees and hothouse
strawberries. This kills off pollinating insects such as bees and gadflies, forcing man to
collect the pollen himself and artificially pollinate each of the blossoms. Although he
cannot even hope to replace the myriad activities of all the plants, animals, and
microorganisms in nature, man goes out of his way to block their activities, then studies
each of these functions carefully and attempts to find substitutes. What a ridiculous waste
of effort.
Consider the case of the scientist who studies mice and develops a rodenticide. He
does so without understanding why mice nourished in the first place. He simply decides
that killing them is a good idea without first determining whether the mice multiplied as
the result of a breakdown in the balance of nature,or whether they support that balance.
The rodenticide is a temporary expedient that answers only the needs of a given time and
place; it is not a responsible action in keeping with the true cycles of nature. Man cannot
possibly replace all the functions of plants and animals on this earth through scientific
analysis and human knowledge. While unable to fully grasp the totality of these
interrelationships, any rash endeavor such as the selective extermination or raising of a
species only serves to upset the balance and order of nature.
Even the replanting of mountain forests may be seen as destructive. Trees are logged
for their value as lumber, and species of economic value to man, such as pine and cedar,
are planted in large number. We even go so far as to call this “forestry conservation.”
However, altering the tree cover on a mountain produces changes in the characteristics of
the forest soil, which in turn affects the plants and animals that inhabit the forest.
Qualitative changes also take place in the air and temperature of the forest, causing subtle
changes in weather and affecting the microbial world.
No matter how closely one looks, there is no limit to the complexity and detail with
which nature interacts to effect constant, organic change. When a section of the forest is
clear-cut and cedar trees planted, for example, there no longer is enough food for small
birds. These disappear, allowing long-horned beetles to flourish. The beetles are vectors
for nematodes, which attack red pines and feed on parasitic Botrytis fungi in the trunks of
the pine trees. The pines fall victim to the Botrytis fungi because they are weakened by
the disappearance of the edible matsutake fungus that lives symbolically on the roots of
red pines. This beneficial fungus has died off as a result of an increase in the harmful
Botrytis fungus in the soil, which is itself a consequence of the acidity of the soil. The
high soil acidity is the result of atmospheric pollution and acid rain, and so on and so
forth. This backward regression from effect to prior cause Continues in an unending
chain that leaves one wondering what the true cause is.
When the pines die, thickets of bamboo grass rise up. Mice feed on the abundant
bamboo grass berries and multiply. The mice attack the cedar saplings, so man applies a
rodenticide. But as the mice vanish, a decline occurs in the weasels and snakes that feed
on them. To protect the weasels, man then begins to raise mice to restore the rodent
population. Isn’t this the stuff of crazed dreams?
Toxic chemicals are applied at least eight times a year on Japanese rice fields. Is it not
odd then that hardly any agricultural scientists have bothered to investigate why the
amount of insect damage in these fields remains largely the same as in fields where no
pesticides are used? The first application of pesticide does not kill off the hordes of rice
leaf hoppers, but the tens of thousands of young spiders on each square yard of land
simply vanish, and the swarms of fireflies that fly up from the stands of grass disappear at
once. The second application kills off the chalcid dies, which are important natural
predators, and leaves victim dragonfly larvae, tadpoles, and leaches. Just one look at this
slaughter would suffice to show the insanity of the blanket application of pesticides.
No matter how hard he tries, man can never rule over nature. What he can do is serve
nature, which means living in accordance with its laws.
The “Do-Nothing” Movement
The age of aggressive expansion in our materialistic culture is at an end, and a new
“do-nothing” age of consolidation and convergence has arrived. Man must hurry to
establish a new way of life and a spiritual culture founded on communion with nature,
lest he grow ever more weak and feeble while running around in a frenzy of wasted effort
and confusion.
When he turns back to nature and seeks to learn the essence of a tree or a blade of
grass, man will have no need for human knowledge. It will be enough to live in concert
with nature, free of plans, designs, and effort. One can break free of the false image of
nature conceived by the human intellect only by becoming detached and earnestly
begging for a return to the absolute realm of nature. No, not even entreaty and
supplication are necessary; it is enough only to farm the earth free of concern and desire.
To achieve a humanity and a society founded on non-action, man must look back over
everything he has done and rid himself one by one of the false visions and concepts that
permeate him and his society. This is what the “do-nothing” movement is all about.
Natural farming can be seen as one branch of this movement. Human knowledge and
effort expand and grow increasingly complex and wasteful without limit. We need to halt
this expansion, to converge, simplify, and reduce our knowledge and effort. This is in
keeping with the laws of nature. Natural farming is more than just a revolution in
agricultural techniques. It is the practical foundation of a spiritual movement, of a
revolution to change the way man lives.
2. The Breakdown of Japanese Agriculture -
Life in the Farming Villages of the Past
In earlier days, Japanese peasants were a poor and downtrodden lot. Forever oppressed
by those in power, they occupied the lowest rung on the social ladder. Where did they
find the strength to endure their poverty and what did they depend on to live?
The farmers who lived quietly in a secluded inland glen, on a solitary island in the
southern seas, or in a desolate northern region of deep snows were self-supporting and
independent; they lived a proud, happy, noble life in the great outdoors. People born in
remote areas who lived out poor lives and died anonymously were able to subsist in a
world cut off from the rest of mankind without discontent or anxiety because, though
they appeared alone, they were not. They were creatures of nature, and being close to
God (nature incarnate), experienced the daily joy and pride of tending the gardens of
God. They went out to work in the fields at sunrise and returned home to rest at sunset,
living each day well, one day being as wide and infinite as the universe and yet just one
small frame in the unending flow of existence. Theirs was a farming way of life, set in
the midst of nature, which violated nothing and was not itself violated.
Farmers are bound to take offense when the clever ones who left the village and made
their way in the world come back, saying “sir, sir”with false humility, then, when you
least expect it, telling you, in effect, to “go to hell.” Although farmers have no need for
business cards, on occasion they have been misers too mean to part with a single penny,
and at other times, millionaires without the slightest interest in fabulous riches. Peasant
villages were lonely, out-of-the-way places inhabited by indigent farmers, yet were also
home to recluses who lived in a world of the sublime. People in the small, humble
villages of which Lao-tzu spoke were unaware that the Great Way of man lay in living
independently and self-sufficiently, yet they knew this in their hearts. These were the
farmers of old.
What a tragedy it would be to think of these as fools who know, yet are unaware. To
the remark that “any fool can farm,” farmers should reply, “a fool cannot be a true
farmer.” There is no need for philosophy in the farming village. It is the urban intellectual
who ponders human existence, who goes in search of truth and questions the purpose of
life.
The farmer does not wrestle with the questions of why man arose on the face of the
earth and how he should live. Why is it that he never learned to question his existence?
Life was never so empty and void as to bring him to contemplate the purpose of human
existence; there was no seed of uncertainty to lead him astray.
With their intuitive understanding of life and death, these farmers were free of anguish
and grief; they had no need for learning. They joked that agonizing over life and death,
and wandering through ideological thickets in search of truth were the pastimes of idle
city youth. Farmers preferred to live common lives, without knowledge or learning.
There was no time for philosophizing. Nor was there any need. This does not mean that
the farming village was without a philosophy. On the contrary, it had a very important
philosophy. This was embodied in the principle that “philosophy is unnecessary.” The
farming village was above all a society of philosophers without a need for philosophy. It
was none other than the philosophy of Mu, or nothingness—which teaches that all is
unnecessary, that gave the farmer his enduring strength.
Disappearance of the Village Philosophy
Not that long ago one could still hear the woodsman sing a woodcutter’s song as he
sawed down a tree. During transplanting, singing voices rolled over the paddy fields, and
the sound of drums surged through the village after the fall harvest. Nor was it that long
ago that people used pack animals to carry goods.
These scenes have changed drastically over the past twenty years or so. In the
mountains, instead of the rasping of hand saws, we now hear the angry snarl of chain
saws. We see mechanical plows and trans planters racing over the fields. Vegetables today
are grown in vinyl houses ranged in neat rows like factories. The fields are automatically
sprayed with fertilizers and pesticides. Because all of the farmer’s work has been
mechanized and systematized, the farming village has lost its human touch. Singing
voices are no longer heard. Everyone sits instead before the TV set, listening to
traditional country songs and reminiscing over the past.
We have fallen from a true way of life to one that is false. People rush about in a
frenzy to shorten time and widen space, and in so doing lose both.
The farmer may have thought at first that modern developments would make his job
easier. Well, it freed him from the land and now he works harder than ever at other jobs,
wearing away his body and mind. The chain saw was developed because someone
decided that a tree had to be cut faster. Rather than making things easier for the farmer,
the mechanized transplantation of rice has sent him running off to find other work.
The disappearance of the sunken hearth from farming homes has extinguished the
light of ancient farming village culture. Fireside discussions have vanished, and with
them, the village philosophy.
High Growth after World War II
No country has experienced such a sudden and dramatic transformation as Japan
following World War II. The country rose rapidly from the ruins of war to become a
major economic power. As this was going on, its farming and fishing populations —the
seedbed of the Japanese people—fell from fifty percent of the overall population at the
end of the war to less than twenty percent today. Without the help of the dexterous, hardworking farmer, the skyscrapers, highways, and subways of the metropolises would never
have materialized. Japan owes its current prosperity to the labor it appropriated from the
farming population and placed at the service of urban civilization.
Japan’s rapid growth following the war is generally attributed to good fortune and
wise leadership. However, the farmer draws a different interpretation. Changes in the
self-image of the farming population led to the adoption of new agricultural methods. As
farming became less labor-intensive, surplus manpower poured out of the countryside
into the towns and cities, bringing prosperity to the urban civilization. But far from being
a blessing, this prosperity has made things harder on the farmer. In effect, he tightened
the noose about his own neck. How did this happen?
The first step was the arrival of the motorized transport-tiller in the farming village, a
major turning point in Japanese agriculture. This was rapidly followed by three-wheeled
vehicles and trucks. Before long, rope ways, monorails, and paved roads stretched to the
furthest corners of the village, all of which completely altered the farmer’s notions of
time and space.
With this wave of change from labor-intensive to capital-intensive farming came the
replacement of the horse-drawn plow with tillers, and later, tractors. Methods of pesticide
and fertilizer application underwent major revisions, with motorized hand sprayers being
abandoned in favor of helicopter spraying. Needless to say, traditional farming with draft
animals was abandoned and replaced with methods involving the heavy application of
chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
The rapid mechanization of agriculture lit the fires for the revival and precipitous
growth of the machine industry, while the adoption of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and
petroleum-based farming materials laid the foundation for development of the chemical
industry.
It was the desire by farmers to modernize, the sweeping reforms in methods of crop
cultivation that opened up the road to a new transformation of society following the
destruction of the weapons industry and the industrial infrastructure during the war. What
began as a movement to assure adequate food supplies in times of acute shortage grew
into a drive to increase food production, the momentum of which carried over into the
industrial world. This is where things stood in themid-1950s.
The situation changed completely in the late sixties and early seventies. Stability of
food supply had been achieved for the most part and the economy was overflowing with
vigor. At last the visions of a modern industrial state were beginning to be realized. It was
at about this time that politicians and businessmen started thinking of how to bring the
large number of farmers and their land into the picture.
Once food surpluses started to arise, the farmers became a weight around the
government’s neck. The food control system set up to ensure an adequate food supply
began to be regarded as a burden on the nation. The Basic Agriculture Law was
established in 1961 to define the role and direction to be taken by Japanese agriculture.
But instead of serving as a foundation for farmers,it established controls over the farmer
and passed the reins of control to the financial community. The general public started
thinking that agricultural land could be put to better use in industry and housing than for
food production; city dwellers even began to see farmers, who were reluctant to part with
their land, as selfish monopolizers of land. Laborers and office workers joined in the
effort to drive farmers off their land, and taxes as high as those on housing land were
levied on farmland.
The effort by farmers to raise food production appears to have backfired against them.
Even though Japan’s food self-sufficiency has dropped below thirty percent, farmers are
unable to speak up because the people of the nation are under the illusion that the
farmland reduction policy being pushed through by the government is in the interest of
the consumer. Somewhere along the way, the farmer lost both his land and the freedom to
choose the crops he wishes to raise. Farmers have simply gone with the flow of the times.
Today, most of them lament that they can’t make a decent living off farming.
Why has the farming community fallen to such a hopeless state? The experience of
Japanese farmers over the past 30 years is unprecedented, and poses very grave problems
for the future. Let us take a closer look at the fall of Japanese agriculture to determine
exactly what happened.
How an Impoverished National Agricultural Policy Arose
When I look closely at the recent history of an agriculture that, unable to oppose the
current of the times, has been made to bend and twist to the designs of the leadership, as a
farmer, I cannot help feeling tremendous rage.
Behind the claim that today’s farming youth is being carefully trained as agricultural
specialists and model farmers lie plans to wipe out small farms and proposals for a
euthanasia of farming. Underlying the spectacular programs for modernizing agriculture
and increasing productivity, and the calls to expand the scale of farming operations, lies a
thinly-disguised contempt for the farmer.
While the one-acre farmer was doing all he could to work his way up to three or even
five acres, the policy leaders in government were saying that ten acres just was not large
enough, and were running demonstration farms of ISO acres. Clearly, no matter how hard
they tried to scale up their operations, farmers were pitted one against another in a
fratricidal process of natural selection.
To the economists who supported the doctrine of international division of labor,
agrarianism and the insistence by farmers that their mission was to produce food were
evidence of the obstinate, mule-headed farming temperament which they despised. As for
the trading companies, their basic formula for prosperity was to encourage ever more
domestic and foreign food trade.
Consumers are easily won over by arguments that they have the right to buy cheap,
tasty rice. But “tasty” rice is weak rice, polluting rice grown with lots of pesticides. Such
demands make things harder on the farmer, and the consumer actually ends up eating
bad-tasting rice. The only one who wins out is the merchant.
People talk of “cheap rice,” but it has never been the farmer who sets the price of rice
or other farm produce. Nor is it the farmer who determines production costs. The price of
rice nowadays is the price calculated to support the manufacturers of agricultural
equipment; it is the price needed for the production of new farm implements; it is the
price at which fuel can be bought.
When I visited the United States in the summer of 1979, the price of rice on the U.S.
market was everywhere about 50 cents per pound—about the same as that of economy
rice in Japan. Since the price of gasoline at the time was about one dollar per gallon, I
was at a loss to understand the reasoning behind reports then in circulation that rice could
easily be imported into Japan at one-quarter to one-third the local price. Just as incredible
were reports that the surplus of rice had left the food control system “in the red” or that
the scarcity of wheat had kept the system solvent.
In natural farming, the cost of producing rice is almost the same as the cost of wheat
production. Moreover, both can be produced more cheaply this way than buying imported
grain. The mechanism by which the market price of rice is set has nothing whatsoever to
do with farmers. The retail price of farm produce is said to be too high in Japan, but this
is because the costs of distribution are too high. Distribution costs in Japan are five times
those in the United States and twice as high as in West Germany. One cannot help
suspecting that the aim of Japan’s food policy is to find the best way to line government
coffers with gold. The federal assistance given per farmer is twice as high in the United
States as in Japan, and three times as high in France. Japanese farmers are treated with
indifference.
Today’s farmers are besieged from all sides. Angry voices rise from the cities, crying:
“Farmers are overprotected,” “They are over-subsidized,” “They’re producing too much
rice, putting the food control system in debt, and raising our taxes.”
But these are just the superficial views of people who don’t see the whole picture or
have any idea of the real state of affairs. I am even tempted to call these false rumors
created by the gimmickry of an insanely complex society. At one time, six farming
households supported one official. Today, there is reportedly one agriculture or forestry
official for every full-time farmer. One wonders then if the agricultural deficits in Japan
are really the fault of the farmer.
Statistics tell us that the average American farmer feeds one hundred people and the
average Japanese farmer only ten, but Japanese farmers actually have a higher
productivity than American farmers. It just appears the other way around because
Americans farm under much better conditions than Japanese farmers.
Farmers today in Japan are in love with money. They no longer have any time or
affection for nature or their crops. All they have time for anymore is to blindly follow the
figures spit out by distribution industry computers and the plans of agricultural
administrators. They don’t talk with the land or converse with the crops; they are
interested only in money crops. They grow produce without choosing the time or place,
without giving a thought to the suitability of the land or crop.
The way administrators see it, grain produced abroad and grain grown locally both
have the same value. They make no distinction over whether a crop is a short-term or
long-term crop. Without giving the slightest thought to the concerns of the farmer, the
official instructs the farmer to grow vegetables today, fruits tomorrow, and to forget
about rice. However, crop production within the natural ecosystem is no simple matter
that can be resolved in an administrative bulletin. It is no wonder then that measures
planned from on high are always thwarted and delayed.
When the farmer forgets the land to which he owes his existence and becomes
concerned only with his own self-interest, when the consumer is no longer able to
distinguish between food as the staff of life and food as merely nutrition, when the
administrator looks down his nose at farmers and the industrialist scoffs at nature, then
the land will answer with its death. Nature is not so kind as to forewarn a humanity so
foolish as this.
What Lies Ahead for Modern Agriculture
In 1979, I boarded a plane for the first time and visited the United States. I was
astounded by what I saw. I had thought that desertification and the disappearance of
native peoples were stories from ancient history—in the Middle East and Africa. But I
learned that the very same thing has happened repeatedly in the U.S.
Because meat is the food staple in America, agriculture is dominated by livestock
farming. Grazing has destroyed the ecology of natural grasses, devastating the land. I
watched this happening and could hardly believe my eyes. Land that has lost its fertility
is barren of nature’s strength. This accounts for the development of a modern agriculture
totally reliant on petroleum energy.
The low productivity of the land drives farmers to large-scale operations. Large
operations require mechanization with machinery of increasing size. This “big iron”
breaks down the structure of the soil, setting up a negative cycle. Agriculture that ignores
the forces of nature and relies solely on the human intellect and human effort is
unprofitable. It was inevitable that these crops, produced as they are with the help of
petroleum, would be transformed into a strategic commodity for securing cheap oil.
To get an idea of just how fragile commercial agriculture is with its large-scale,
subcontractor-type monoculture farming, just consider that U.S. farmers working 500 to
700 acres have smaller net incomes than Japanese farmers on 3 to 5 acres.
I realized, however, that these faults of modern farming were rooted in the basic
illusions of Western philosophy that support the foundations of scientific agriculture. I
saw that mistaken ideology had led man astray in how he lived his life and secured his
essentials of food, clothing, and shelter. I noted that confusion over food had bred
confusion over farming, which had destroyed nature. And I understood also that the
destruction of nature had enfeebled man and thrown the world into disarray.
Is There a Future for Natural Farming?
I do not wish merely to expose and attack the current state of modern agriculture, but
to point out the errors of Western thought and call for observance of the Eastern
philosophy of Mu. While recalling the self-sufficient farming practices and natural diets
of the past, my desire has been to establish a natural way of farming for the future and
explore the potential for its spread and adoption by others.
Yet I suppose that whether natural farming becomes the method of farming for the
future depends both on a general acceptance of the thinking on which it is based and on a
reversal in the existing value system. Although I will not expound here on this
philosophy of Mu and its system of values, I would like to take a brief look at the
agriculture of the future from the perspective of Mu.
Forty years ago, I predicted that the age of centrifugal expansion fed by the growing
material desires of man, the era of rampant modern science, would soon pass and be
replaced by a period of contraction and convergence as man sought to improve his
spiritual life. I take it that I was wrong.
Even organic farming, which has come into its own with the pollution problem, only
serves as a temporary stopgap, a brief respite. This is essentially a rehashing of the
animal-based traditional farming of the past. Being part and parcel of scientific
agriculture to begin with, it will be swallowed whole and assimilated by scientific
agriculture.
I had hoped that the self-sufficient agriculture ofthe past and farming methods that try
to tap into the natural ecosystem would help turn Japanese thinking around and reorient it
toward natural farming—the true way of agriculture,but the current situation is almost
behind hope.
Science Continues on an Unending Rampage
In today’s society, man is cut off from nature and human knowledge is arbitrary. To
take an example, suppose that a scientist wants to understand nature. He may begin by
studying a leaf, but as his investigation progresses down to the level of molecules, atoms,
and elementary particles, he loses sight of the original leaf.
Nuclear fission and fusion research is among the most advanced and dynamic fields of
inquiry today, and with the development of genetic engineering, man has acquired the
ability to alter life as he pleases. A self-appointed surrogate of the Creator, he has gotten
hold of a magic wand, a sorcerer’s staff.
And what is man likely to attempt in the field of agriculture? He probably intends to
begin with the creation of curious plants by inter specific genetic recombination. It should
be easy to create gigantic varieties of rice. Trees will be crossed with bamboo, and
eggplants will be grown on cucumber vines. It will even become possible to ripen
tomatoes on trees.
By transferring genes from leguminous plants to tomato or rice, scientists will produce
rhizobium-bearing tomatoes capable of fixing nitrogen from the air. Once tomatoes and
rice are developed that do not require nitrogen fertilizer, farmers will no doubt jump at
the chance to grow these.
Genetic engineering will most certainly be applied to insects as well. If hybrid bee flies are created, or butterfly-dragonflies, we will no longer be able to tell whether these
are beneficial insects or pests. Yet, just as the queen ant produces nothing but worker
ants, man will try to create any insect or animal that is of benefit to him.
Eventually, things may progress to the point where hybrids of foxes and raccoons will
be created for zoos, and we may see vegetable-like or mechanical humans created as
workers. The most ridiculous products, if developed initially for the sake of medicine, let
us say, will receive the plaudits of the world and win wide acceptance. A good example is
the recent news, received as a godsend, that the mass production of insulin has been
achieved through genetic recombination using E. coli genes.
The Illusions of Science and the Farmer
Today we have test-tube babies, and scientists are already envisioning a day, not that
far off, when they will breed superior humans in culture media by transferring in the
genes of gifted physicists and mathematicians. Perhaps they dream of creating new races
of men. There will no longer be any need to go through the ordeal of giving birth, or
raising children for that matter, as children will be raised in complete incubators
equipped with dispensers supplying artificial protein foods and vitamins.
No longer will food consist of unappetizing meal protein synthesized from petrochemicals. Instead, we will enjoy delicious, inexpensive meat-like products created by
crossing the genes of the soybean with the genes of the cow or pig.
Such dreams of science are so close to being achieved, I can see them as if they were
already a reality. When that day does come, what will be the role of farmers then?
Working the open fields under the sun may become a thing of the past. The farmer may
find himself assisting the scientist as a laborer in a tightly sealed factory—perhaps even
one for mass-producing strong, intelligent, artificial humans to eliminate the trouble of
using or dealing with ordinary human beings.
To the scientist, this sort of tragedy appears as but a temporary inconvenience, a
necessary sacrifice. Firm and unshaking in his conviction that, while still imperfect,
someday human knowledge will be complete, that knowledge is of value as long as it is
not put to the wrong use, he will probably continue to rise eagerly to the challenge of
empty possibilities.
But these dreams of scientists are just mirages, nothing more than wild dancing in the
hand of the Lord Buddha. Even if scientists change the living and nonliving as they
please and create new life, the fruits and creations of human knowledge can never exceed
the limits of the human intellect. In the eyes of nature, actions that arise from human
knowledge are all futile.
All is arbitrary delusion created by the false reasoning of man in a world of relativity.
Man has learned and achieved nothing. He is destroying nature under the illusion that he
controls it. Casting and befouling himself as a plaything, he is bringing the earth to the
abyss of annihilation. Nor will it be just the farmer who follows the bidding of the
scientist and lends him a hand. What a tragedy if this is what awaits the farmer of
tomorrow. What a tragedy too for those who laugh at the ruin of each farmer, and those
as well who merely look on.
All that remains is a last glimmer of hope that the principle dying like a buried ember
in the farming village will be unearthed and revived in time to establish a natural way of
farming that unites man and nature.
3. Disappearance of a Natural Diet
Decline in the Quality of Food
It should have come as no surprise that crops grown with vast amounts of petroleum
energy would suffer a decline in quality. The use of oil-based energy in agriculture has
gotten to the point where one could almost talk of growing rice in the “oil patch” rather
than in the “paddy.”
Farming under the open skies has disappeared. Agriculture today has been degraded to
the manufacture of petroleum-derived foods, and the farmer has become a seller of false
goods called “nutritional food.”
Ever since the farmer who had worked hand in hand with nature capitulated to the
pressures of society and became a subcontractor to the oil industry, control over his
livelihood has passed into the hands of the industrialist and businessman. Today it is the
merchant who has the last say over the farmer’s right to loss or gain, life or death.
The destruction of agriculture can be seen, for example, in the transition by farmers
from the open cultivation of vegetables to hothouse horticulture. This began with the
seeding and growing of melons and tomatoes in soil within hot beds or vinyl houses
arranged in neat rows. The next stage was sand culture and gravel culture using sand or
gravel in place of soil because these materials have fewer bacteria and are thus “cleaner.”
This was accompanied by a change in thinking—replacing the notion of forming rich soil
with that of administering nutrients—-which led to the creation and supply of nutrient
solutions. The only function of the sand and gravel was to support the plant, so a simpler,
more readily available material was sought. Plastic or polymer netting and containers
were developed in which seeds are “planted.” As these germinate and grow, the roots
extend out in all directions within the plastic netting. The stem and leaves are also
artificially supported, and the tightly sealed chamber in which the plants are grown is
completely sterile, eliminating the chance, at first, of insect damage or blight.
Since the root absorption of nutrients dissolved in water is inefficient, the nutrient
solution is sprayed on a regular basis over the entire plant. Nutrients are taken in not only
through the roots, but also through leaf surfaces, so they are more immediately available,
resulting in a higher growth rate. The temperature is increased and the level of light
exposure raised with artificial lighting. Carbon dioxide is sprayed and oxygen pumped in,
making plant growth several times faster than in field cultivation.
However, any product grown in such an artificial environment is a far cry from
products grown under natural conditions. True, freshly colored melons with a beautifully
networked skin and a sweet taste and fragrance can be produced, as can large red
tomatoes and supple green cucumbers of good texture. But it is a mistake to think of
these as good for man. Grown unnaturally as they are, these products are inferior in
quality, although perhaps in ways unknown to man. Nature has struck back fiercely
against this affront by technology, in the form of increased insect damage. Predictably,
the response by man has been an agriculture increasingly dependent on pesticides and
fertilizers.
Artificial cultivation leads ultimately to the total synthesis of food. The creation of
factories for purely chemical food synthesis that will render farms and gardens
unnecessary is already underway. This will make of agriculture an activity entirely
unrelated to nature.
The synthesis of urea has enabled man to produce any organic material he wishes.
Protein synthesis enables man-made meat to be fabricated from various materials. Butter
and cheese can- be made from petroleum. Sooner or later, as further progress is made in
research on photosynthesis, man will surely learn how to synthesize starch. He may even
succeed one day in doing this by the saccharification of wood and oil.
Man has learned how to synthesize nucleic acid and cellular proteins and nuclei, and is
beginning to synthesize and recombine genes and chromosomes. He has even begun
thinking that he can control life itself. Not only that. As the notion has settled in that he
may soon be able to alter all living things in any way he pleases, man has begun fancying
himself as the Creator. Yet all that he learns, all that he performs and creates with
science, is a mere imitation of nature and propels him further along the path to suicidal
self-destruction.
1. Man Cannot Know Nature
Man prides himself on being the only creature on earth with the ability to think. He
claims to know himself and the natural world, and believes he can use nature as he
pleases. He is convinced, moreover, that intelligence is strength, that anything he desires
is within his reach.
As he has forged ahead, making new advances in the natural sciences and dizzily
expanding his materialistic culture, man has grown estranged from nature and ended by
building a civilization all his own, like a wayward child rebelling against its mother.
But all his vast cities and frenetic activity have brought him are empty, dehumanized
pleasures and the destruction of his living environment through the abusive exploitation
of nature.
Harsh retribution for straying from nature and plundering its riches has begun to
appear in the form of depleted natural resources and food crises, throwing a dark shadow
over the future of mankind. Having finally grown aware of the gravity of the situation,
man has begun to think seriously about what should be done. But unless he is willing to
undertake the most fundamental self-reflection he will be unable to steer away from a
path of certain destruction.
Alienated from nature, human existence becomes a void, the wellspring of life and
spiritual growth gone utterly dry. Man grows ever more ill and weary in the midst of his
curious civilization that is but a struggle over a tiny bit of time and space.
Leave Nature Alone
Man has always deluded himself into thinking that he knows nature and is free to use
it as he wishes to build his civilizations. But nature cannot be explained or expanded
upon. As an organic whole, it not subject to man’s classifications; nor does it tolerate
dissection and analysis. Once broken down, nature cannot be returned to its original state.
All that remains is an empty skeleton devoid of the true essence of living nature. This
skeletal image only serves to confuse man and lead him further astray.
Scientific reasoning also is of no avail in helping man understand nature and add to its
creations. Nature as perceived by man through discriminating knowledge is a falsehood.
Man can never truly know even a single leaf or a single handful of earth. Unable to fully
comprehend plant life and soil, he sees these only through the filter of human intellect.
Although he may seek to return to the bosom of nature or use it to his advantage, man
only touches one tiny part of nature—a dead portion at that—and has no affinity with the
main body of living nature. He is, in effect, merely toying with delusions.
Man is but an arrogant fool who vainly believes that he knows all of nature and can
achieve anything he sets his mind to. Seeing neither the logic nor order inherent in nature,
he has selfishly appropriated it to his own ends and destroyed it. The world today is in
such a sad state because man has not felt compelled to reflect upon the dangers of his
high-handed ways.
The earth is an organically interwoven community of plants, animals, and microorganisms. When seen through man’s eyes, it appears either as a model of the strong
consuming the weak or of coexistence and mutual benefit. Yet there are food chains and
cycles of matter; there is endless transformation without birth or death. Although this flux
of matter and the cycles in the biosphere can be perceived only through direct intuition,
our unswerving faith in the omnipotence of science has led us to analyze and study these
phenomena, raining down destruction upon the world of living things and throwing
nature as we see it into disarray.
A case in point is the application of toxic pesticides to apple trees and hothouse
strawberries. This kills off pollinating insects such as bees and gadflies, forcing man to
collect the pollen himself and artificially pollinate each of the blossoms. Although he
cannot even hope to replace the myriad activities of all the plants, animals, and
microorganisms in nature, man goes out of his way to block their activities, then studies
each of these functions carefully and attempts to find substitutes. What a ridiculous waste
of effort.
Consider the case of the scientist who studies mice and develops a rodenticide. He
does so without understanding why mice nourished in the first place. He simply decides
that killing them is a good idea without first determining whether the mice multiplied as
the result of a breakdown in the balance of nature,or whether they support that balance.
The rodenticide is a temporary expedient that answers only the needs of a given time and
place; it is not a responsible action in keeping with the true cycles of nature. Man cannot
possibly replace all the functions of plants and animals on this earth through scientific
analysis and human knowledge. While unable to fully grasp the totality of these
interrelationships, any rash endeavor such as the selective extermination or raising of a
species only serves to upset the balance and order of nature.
Even the replanting of mountain forests may be seen as destructive. Trees are logged
for their value as lumber, and species of economic value to man, such as pine and cedar,
are planted in large number. We even go so far as to call this “forestry conservation.”
However, altering the tree cover on a mountain produces changes in the characteristics of
the forest soil, which in turn affects the plants and animals that inhabit the forest.
Qualitative changes also take place in the air and temperature of the forest, causing subtle
changes in weather and affecting the microbial world.
No matter how closely one looks, there is no limit to the complexity and detail with
which nature interacts to effect constant, organic change. When a section of the forest is
clear-cut and cedar trees planted, for example, there no longer is enough food for small
birds. These disappear, allowing long-horned beetles to flourish. The beetles are vectors
for nematodes, which attack red pines and feed on parasitic Botrytis fungi in the trunks of
the pine trees. The pines fall victim to the Botrytis fungi because they are weakened by
the disappearance of the edible matsutake fungus that lives symbolically on the roots of
red pines. This beneficial fungus has died off as a result of an increase in the harmful
Botrytis fungus in the soil, which is itself a consequence of the acidity of the soil. The
high soil acidity is the result of atmospheric pollution and acid rain, and so on and so
forth. This backward regression from effect to prior cause Continues in an unending
chain that leaves one wondering what the true cause is.
When the pines die, thickets of bamboo grass rise up. Mice feed on the abundant
bamboo grass berries and multiply. The mice attack the cedar saplings, so man applies a
rodenticide. But as the mice vanish, a decline occurs in the weasels and snakes that feed
on them. To protect the weasels, man then begins to raise mice to restore the rodent
population. Isn’t this the stuff of crazed dreams?
Toxic chemicals are applied at least eight times a year on Japanese rice fields. Is it not
odd then that hardly any agricultural scientists have bothered to investigate why the
amount of insect damage in these fields remains largely the same as in fields where no
pesticides are used? The first application of pesticide does not kill off the hordes of rice
leaf hoppers, but the tens of thousands of young spiders on each square yard of land
simply vanish, and the swarms of fireflies that fly up from the stands of grass disappear at
once. The second application kills off the chalcid dies, which are important natural
predators, and leaves victim dragonfly larvae, tadpoles, and leaches. Just one look at this
slaughter would suffice to show the insanity of the blanket application of pesticides.
No matter how hard he tries, man can never rule over nature. What he can do is serve
nature, which means living in accordance with its laws.
The “Do-Nothing” Movement
The age of aggressive expansion in our materialistic culture is at an end, and a new
“do-nothing” age of consolidation and convergence has arrived. Man must hurry to
establish a new way of life and a spiritual culture founded on communion with nature,
lest he grow ever more weak and feeble while running around in a frenzy of wasted effort
and confusion.
When he turns back to nature and seeks to learn the essence of a tree or a blade of
grass, man will have no need for human knowledge. It will be enough to live in concert
with nature, free of plans, designs, and effort. One can break free of the false image of
nature conceived by the human intellect only by becoming detached and earnestly
begging for a return to the absolute realm of nature. No, not even entreaty and
supplication are necessary; it is enough only to farm the earth free of concern and desire.
To achieve a humanity and a society founded on non-action, man must look back over
everything he has done and rid himself one by one of the false visions and concepts that
permeate him and his society. This is what the “do-nothing” movement is all about.
Natural farming can be seen as one branch of this movement. Human knowledge and
effort expand and grow increasingly complex and wasteful without limit. We need to halt
this expansion, to converge, simplify, and reduce our knowledge and effort. This is in
keeping with the laws of nature. Natural farming is more than just a revolution in
agricultural techniques. It is the practical foundation of a spiritual movement, of a
revolution to change the way man lives.
2. The Breakdown of Japanese Agriculture -
Life in the Farming Villages of the Past
In earlier days, Japanese peasants were a poor and downtrodden lot. Forever oppressed
by those in power, they occupied the lowest rung on the social ladder. Where did they
find the strength to endure their poverty and what did they depend on to live?
The farmers who lived quietly in a secluded inland glen, on a solitary island in the
southern seas, or in a desolate northern region of deep snows were self-supporting and
independent; they lived a proud, happy, noble life in the great outdoors. People born in
remote areas who lived out poor lives and died anonymously were able to subsist in a
world cut off from the rest of mankind without discontent or anxiety because, though
they appeared alone, they were not. They were creatures of nature, and being close to
God (nature incarnate), experienced the daily joy and pride of tending the gardens of
God. They went out to work in the fields at sunrise and returned home to rest at sunset,
living each day well, one day being as wide and infinite as the universe and yet just one
small frame in the unending flow of existence. Theirs was a farming way of life, set in
the midst of nature, which violated nothing and was not itself violated.
Farmers are bound to take offense when the clever ones who left the village and made
their way in the world come back, saying “sir, sir”with false humility, then, when you
least expect it, telling you, in effect, to “go to hell.” Although farmers have no need for
business cards, on occasion they have been misers too mean to part with a single penny,
and at other times, millionaires without the slightest interest in fabulous riches. Peasant
villages were lonely, out-of-the-way places inhabited by indigent farmers, yet were also
home to recluses who lived in a world of the sublime. People in the small, humble
villages of which Lao-tzu spoke were unaware that the Great Way of man lay in living
independently and self-sufficiently, yet they knew this in their hearts. These were the
farmers of old.
What a tragedy it would be to think of these as fools who know, yet are unaware. To
the remark that “any fool can farm,” farmers should reply, “a fool cannot be a true
farmer.” There is no need for philosophy in the farming village. It is the urban intellectual
who ponders human existence, who goes in search of truth and questions the purpose of
life.
The farmer does not wrestle with the questions of why man arose on the face of the
earth and how he should live. Why is it that he never learned to question his existence?
Life was never so empty and void as to bring him to contemplate the purpose of human
existence; there was no seed of uncertainty to lead him astray.
With their intuitive understanding of life and death, these farmers were free of anguish
and grief; they had no need for learning. They joked that agonizing over life and death,
and wandering through ideological thickets in search of truth were the pastimes of idle
city youth. Farmers preferred to live common lives, without knowledge or learning.
There was no time for philosophizing. Nor was there any need. This does not mean that
the farming village was without a philosophy. On the contrary, it had a very important
philosophy. This was embodied in the principle that “philosophy is unnecessary.” The
farming village was above all a society of philosophers without a need for philosophy. It
was none other than the philosophy of Mu, or nothingness—which teaches that all is
unnecessary, that gave the farmer his enduring strength.
Disappearance of the Village Philosophy
Not that long ago one could still hear the woodsman sing a woodcutter’s song as he
sawed down a tree. During transplanting, singing voices rolled over the paddy fields, and
the sound of drums surged through the village after the fall harvest. Nor was it that long
ago that people used pack animals to carry goods.
These scenes have changed drastically over the past twenty years or so. In the
mountains, instead of the rasping of hand saws, we now hear the angry snarl of chain
saws. We see mechanical plows and trans planters racing over the fields. Vegetables today
are grown in vinyl houses ranged in neat rows like factories. The fields are automatically
sprayed with fertilizers and pesticides. Because all of the farmer’s work has been
mechanized and systematized, the farming village has lost its human touch. Singing
voices are no longer heard. Everyone sits instead before the TV set, listening to
traditional country songs and reminiscing over the past.
We have fallen from a true way of life to one that is false. People rush about in a
frenzy to shorten time and widen space, and in so doing lose both.
The farmer may have thought at first that modern developments would make his job
easier. Well, it freed him from the land and now he works harder than ever at other jobs,
wearing away his body and mind. The chain saw was developed because someone
decided that a tree had to be cut faster. Rather than making things easier for the farmer,
the mechanized transplantation of rice has sent him running off to find other work.
The disappearance of the sunken hearth from farming homes has extinguished the
light of ancient farming village culture. Fireside discussions have vanished, and with
them, the village philosophy.
High Growth after World War II
No country has experienced such a sudden and dramatic transformation as Japan
following World War II. The country rose rapidly from the ruins of war to become a
major economic power. As this was going on, its farming and fishing populations —the
seedbed of the Japanese people—fell from fifty percent of the overall population at the
end of the war to less than twenty percent today. Without the help of the dexterous, hardworking farmer, the skyscrapers, highways, and subways of the metropolises would never
have materialized. Japan owes its current prosperity to the labor it appropriated from the
farming population and placed at the service of urban civilization.
Japan’s rapid growth following the war is generally attributed to good fortune and
wise leadership. However, the farmer draws a different interpretation. Changes in the
self-image of the farming population led to the adoption of new agricultural methods. As
farming became less labor-intensive, surplus manpower poured out of the countryside
into the towns and cities, bringing prosperity to the urban civilization. But far from being
a blessing, this prosperity has made things harder on the farmer. In effect, he tightened
the noose about his own neck. How did this happen?
The first step was the arrival of the motorized transport-tiller in the farming village, a
major turning point in Japanese agriculture. This was rapidly followed by three-wheeled
vehicles and trucks. Before long, rope ways, monorails, and paved roads stretched to the
furthest corners of the village, all of which completely altered the farmer’s notions of
time and space.
With this wave of change from labor-intensive to capital-intensive farming came the
replacement of the horse-drawn plow with tillers, and later, tractors. Methods of pesticide
and fertilizer application underwent major revisions, with motorized hand sprayers being
abandoned in favor of helicopter spraying. Needless to say, traditional farming with draft
animals was abandoned and replaced with methods involving the heavy application of
chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
The rapid mechanization of agriculture lit the fires for the revival and precipitous
growth of the machine industry, while the adoption of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and
petroleum-based farming materials laid the foundation for development of the chemical
industry.
It was the desire by farmers to modernize, the sweeping reforms in methods of crop
cultivation that opened up the road to a new transformation of society following the
destruction of the weapons industry and the industrial infrastructure during the war. What
began as a movement to assure adequate food supplies in times of acute shortage grew
into a drive to increase food production, the momentum of which carried over into the
industrial world. This is where things stood in themid-1950s.
The situation changed completely in the late sixties and early seventies. Stability of
food supply had been achieved for the most part and the economy was overflowing with
vigor. At last the visions of a modern industrial state were beginning to be realized. It was
at about this time that politicians and businessmen started thinking of how to bring the
large number of farmers and their land into the picture.
Once food surpluses started to arise, the farmers became a weight around the
government’s neck. The food control system set up to ensure an adequate food supply
began to be regarded as a burden on the nation. The Basic Agriculture Law was
established in 1961 to define the role and direction to be taken by Japanese agriculture.
But instead of serving as a foundation for farmers,it established controls over the farmer
and passed the reins of control to the financial community. The general public started
thinking that agricultural land could be put to better use in industry and housing than for
food production; city dwellers even began to see farmers, who were reluctant to part with
their land, as selfish monopolizers of land. Laborers and office workers joined in the
effort to drive farmers off their land, and taxes as high as those on housing land were
levied on farmland.
The effort by farmers to raise food production appears to have backfired against them.
Even though Japan’s food self-sufficiency has dropped below thirty percent, farmers are
unable to speak up because the people of the nation are under the illusion that the
farmland reduction policy being pushed through by the government is in the interest of
the consumer. Somewhere along the way, the farmer lost both his land and the freedom to
choose the crops he wishes to raise. Farmers have simply gone with the flow of the times.
Today, most of them lament that they can’t make a decent living off farming.
Why has the farming community fallen to such a hopeless state? The experience of
Japanese farmers over the past 30 years is unprecedented, and poses very grave problems
for the future. Let us take a closer look at the fall of Japanese agriculture to determine
exactly what happened.
How an Impoverished National Agricultural Policy Arose
When I look closely at the recent history of an agriculture that, unable to oppose the
current of the times, has been made to bend and twist to the designs of the leadership, as a
farmer, I cannot help feeling tremendous rage.
Behind the claim that today’s farming youth is being carefully trained as agricultural
specialists and model farmers lie plans to wipe out small farms and proposals for a
euthanasia of farming. Underlying the spectacular programs for modernizing agriculture
and increasing productivity, and the calls to expand the scale of farming operations, lies a
thinly-disguised contempt for the farmer.
While the one-acre farmer was doing all he could to work his way up to three or even
five acres, the policy leaders in government were saying that ten acres just was not large
enough, and were running demonstration farms of ISO acres. Clearly, no matter how hard
they tried to scale up their operations, farmers were pitted one against another in a
fratricidal process of natural selection.
To the economists who supported the doctrine of international division of labor,
agrarianism and the insistence by farmers that their mission was to produce food were
evidence of the obstinate, mule-headed farming temperament which they despised. As for
the trading companies, their basic formula for prosperity was to encourage ever more
domestic and foreign food trade.
Consumers are easily won over by arguments that they have the right to buy cheap,
tasty rice. But “tasty” rice is weak rice, polluting rice grown with lots of pesticides. Such
demands make things harder on the farmer, and the consumer actually ends up eating
bad-tasting rice. The only one who wins out is the merchant.
People talk of “cheap rice,” but it has never been the farmer who sets the price of rice
or other farm produce. Nor is it the farmer who determines production costs. The price of
rice nowadays is the price calculated to support the manufacturers of agricultural
equipment; it is the price needed for the production of new farm implements; it is the
price at which fuel can be bought.
When I visited the United States in the summer of 1979, the price of rice on the U.S.
market was everywhere about 50 cents per pound—about the same as that of economy
rice in Japan. Since the price of gasoline at the time was about one dollar per gallon, I
was at a loss to understand the reasoning behind reports then in circulation that rice could
easily be imported into Japan at one-quarter to one-third the local price. Just as incredible
were reports that the surplus of rice had left the food control system “in the red” or that
the scarcity of wheat had kept the system solvent.
In natural farming, the cost of producing rice is almost the same as the cost of wheat
production. Moreover, both can be produced more cheaply this way than buying imported
grain. The mechanism by which the market price of rice is set has nothing whatsoever to
do with farmers. The retail price of farm produce is said to be too high in Japan, but this
is because the costs of distribution are too high. Distribution costs in Japan are five times
those in the United States and twice as high as in West Germany. One cannot help
suspecting that the aim of Japan’s food policy is to find the best way to line government
coffers with gold. The federal assistance given per farmer is twice as high in the United
States as in Japan, and three times as high in France. Japanese farmers are treated with
indifference.
Today’s farmers are besieged from all sides. Angry voices rise from the cities, crying:
“Farmers are overprotected,” “They are over-subsidized,” “They’re producing too much
rice, putting the food control system in debt, and raising our taxes.”
But these are just the superficial views of people who don’t see the whole picture or
have any idea of the real state of affairs. I am even tempted to call these false rumors
created by the gimmickry of an insanely complex society. At one time, six farming
households supported one official. Today, there is reportedly one agriculture or forestry
official for every full-time farmer. One wonders then if the agricultural deficits in Japan
are really the fault of the farmer.
Statistics tell us that the average American farmer feeds one hundred people and the
average Japanese farmer only ten, but Japanese farmers actually have a higher
productivity than American farmers. It just appears the other way around because
Americans farm under much better conditions than Japanese farmers.
Farmers today in Japan are in love with money. They no longer have any time or
affection for nature or their crops. All they have time for anymore is to blindly follow the
figures spit out by distribution industry computers and the plans of agricultural
administrators. They don’t talk with the land or converse with the crops; they are
interested only in money crops. They grow produce without choosing the time or place,
without giving a thought to the suitability of the land or crop.
The way administrators see it, grain produced abroad and grain grown locally both
have the same value. They make no distinction over whether a crop is a short-term or
long-term crop. Without giving the slightest thought to the concerns of the farmer, the
official instructs the farmer to grow vegetables today, fruits tomorrow, and to forget
about rice. However, crop production within the natural ecosystem is no simple matter
that can be resolved in an administrative bulletin. It is no wonder then that measures
planned from on high are always thwarted and delayed.
When the farmer forgets the land to which he owes his existence and becomes
concerned only with his own self-interest, when the consumer is no longer able to
distinguish between food as the staff of life and food as merely nutrition, when the
administrator looks down his nose at farmers and the industrialist scoffs at nature, then
the land will answer with its death. Nature is not so kind as to forewarn a humanity so
foolish as this.
What Lies Ahead for Modern Agriculture
In 1979, I boarded a plane for the first time and visited the United States. I was
astounded by what I saw. I had thought that desertification and the disappearance of
native peoples were stories from ancient history—in the Middle East and Africa. But I
learned that the very same thing has happened repeatedly in the U.S.
Because meat is the food staple in America, agriculture is dominated by livestock
farming. Grazing has destroyed the ecology of natural grasses, devastating the land. I
watched this happening and could hardly believe my eyes. Land that has lost its fertility
is barren of nature’s strength. This accounts for the development of a modern agriculture
totally reliant on petroleum energy.
The low productivity of the land drives farmers to large-scale operations. Large
operations require mechanization with machinery of increasing size. This “big iron”
breaks down the structure of the soil, setting up a negative cycle. Agriculture that ignores
the forces of nature and relies solely on the human intellect and human effort is
unprofitable. It was inevitable that these crops, produced as they are with the help of
petroleum, would be transformed into a strategic commodity for securing cheap oil.
To get an idea of just how fragile commercial agriculture is with its large-scale,
subcontractor-type monoculture farming, just consider that U.S. farmers working 500 to
700 acres have smaller net incomes than Japanese farmers on 3 to 5 acres.
I realized, however, that these faults of modern farming were rooted in the basic
illusions of Western philosophy that support the foundations of scientific agriculture. I
saw that mistaken ideology had led man astray in how he lived his life and secured his
essentials of food, clothing, and shelter. I noted that confusion over food had bred
confusion over farming, which had destroyed nature. And I understood also that the
destruction of nature had enfeebled man and thrown the world into disarray.
Is There a Future for Natural Farming?
I do not wish merely to expose and attack the current state of modern agriculture, but
to point out the errors of Western thought and call for observance of the Eastern
philosophy of Mu. While recalling the self-sufficient farming practices and natural diets
of the past, my desire has been to establish a natural way of farming for the future and
explore the potential for its spread and adoption by others.
Yet I suppose that whether natural farming becomes the method of farming for the
future depends both on a general acceptance of the thinking on which it is based and on a
reversal in the existing value system. Although I will not expound here on this
philosophy of Mu and its system of values, I would like to take a brief look at the
agriculture of the future from the perspective of Mu.
Forty years ago, I predicted that the age of centrifugal expansion fed by the growing
material desires of man, the era of rampant modern science, would soon pass and be
replaced by a period of contraction and convergence as man sought to improve his
spiritual life. I take it that I was wrong.
Even organic farming, which has come into its own with the pollution problem, only
serves as a temporary stopgap, a brief respite. This is essentially a rehashing of the
animal-based traditional farming of the past. Being part and parcel of scientific
agriculture to begin with, it will be swallowed whole and assimilated by scientific
agriculture.
I had hoped that the self-sufficient agriculture ofthe past and farming methods that try
to tap into the natural ecosystem would help turn Japanese thinking around and reorient it
toward natural farming—the true way of agriculture,but the current situation is almost
behind hope.
Science Continues on an Unending Rampage
In today’s society, man is cut off from nature and human knowledge is arbitrary. To
take an example, suppose that a scientist wants to understand nature. He may begin by
studying a leaf, but as his investigation progresses down to the level of molecules, atoms,
and elementary particles, he loses sight of the original leaf.
Nuclear fission and fusion research is among the most advanced and dynamic fields of
inquiry today, and with the development of genetic engineering, man has acquired the
ability to alter life as he pleases. A self-appointed surrogate of the Creator, he has gotten
hold of a magic wand, a sorcerer’s staff.
And what is man likely to attempt in the field of agriculture? He probably intends to
begin with the creation of curious plants by inter specific genetic recombination. It should
be easy to create gigantic varieties of rice. Trees will be crossed with bamboo, and
eggplants will be grown on cucumber vines. It will even become possible to ripen
tomatoes on trees.
By transferring genes from leguminous plants to tomato or rice, scientists will produce
rhizobium-bearing tomatoes capable of fixing nitrogen from the air. Once tomatoes and
rice are developed that do not require nitrogen fertilizer, farmers will no doubt jump at
the chance to grow these.
Genetic engineering will most certainly be applied to insects as well. If hybrid bee flies are created, or butterfly-dragonflies, we will no longer be able to tell whether these
are beneficial insects or pests. Yet, just as the queen ant produces nothing but worker
ants, man will try to create any insect or animal that is of benefit to him.
Eventually, things may progress to the point where hybrids of foxes and raccoons will
be created for zoos, and we may see vegetable-like or mechanical humans created as
workers. The most ridiculous products, if developed initially for the sake of medicine, let
us say, will receive the plaudits of the world and win wide acceptance. A good example is
the recent news, received as a godsend, that the mass production of insulin has been
achieved through genetic recombination using E. coli genes.
The Illusions of Science and the Farmer
Today we have test-tube babies, and scientists are already envisioning a day, not that
far off, when they will breed superior humans in culture media by transferring in the
genes of gifted physicists and mathematicians. Perhaps they dream of creating new races
of men. There will no longer be any need to go through the ordeal of giving birth, or
raising children for that matter, as children will be raised in complete incubators
equipped with dispensers supplying artificial protein foods and vitamins.
No longer will food consist of unappetizing meal protein synthesized from petrochemicals. Instead, we will enjoy delicious, inexpensive meat-like products created by
crossing the genes of the soybean with the genes of the cow or pig.
Such dreams of science are so close to being achieved, I can see them as if they were
already a reality. When that day does come, what will be the role of farmers then?
Working the open fields under the sun may become a thing of the past. The farmer may
find himself assisting the scientist as a laborer in a tightly sealed factory—perhaps even
one for mass-producing strong, intelligent, artificial humans to eliminate the trouble of
using or dealing with ordinary human beings.
To the scientist, this sort of tragedy appears as but a temporary inconvenience, a
necessary sacrifice. Firm and unshaking in his conviction that, while still imperfect,
someday human knowledge will be complete, that knowledge is of value as long as it is
not put to the wrong use, he will probably continue to rise eagerly to the challenge of
empty possibilities.
But these dreams of scientists are just mirages, nothing more than wild dancing in the
hand of the Lord Buddha. Even if scientists change the living and nonliving as they
please and create new life, the fruits and creations of human knowledge can never exceed
the limits of the human intellect. In the eyes of nature, actions that arise from human
knowledge are all futile.
All is arbitrary delusion created by the false reasoning of man in a world of relativity.
Man has learned and achieved nothing. He is destroying nature under the illusion that he
controls it. Casting and befouling himself as a plaything, he is bringing the earth to the
abyss of annihilation. Nor will it be just the farmer who follows the bidding of the
scientist and lends him a hand. What a tragedy if this is what awaits the farmer of
tomorrow. What a tragedy too for those who laugh at the ruin of each farmer, and those
as well who merely look on.
All that remains is a last glimmer of hope that the principle dying like a buried ember
in the farming village will be unearthed and revived in time to establish a natural way of
farming that unites man and nature.
3. Disappearance of a Natural Diet
Decline in the Quality of Food
It should have come as no surprise that crops grown with vast amounts of petroleum
energy would suffer a decline in quality. The use of oil-based energy in agriculture has
gotten to the point where one could almost talk of growing rice in the “oil patch” rather
than in the “paddy.”
Farming under the open skies has disappeared. Agriculture today has been degraded to
the manufacture of petroleum-derived foods, and the farmer has become a seller of false
goods called “nutritional food.”
Ever since the farmer who had worked hand in hand with nature capitulated to the
pressures of society and became a subcontractor to the oil industry, control over his
livelihood has passed into the hands of the industrialist and businessman. Today it is the
merchant who has the last say over the farmer’s right to loss or gain, life or death.
The destruction of agriculture can be seen, for example, in the transition by farmers
from the open cultivation of vegetables to hothouse horticulture. This began with the
seeding and growing of melons and tomatoes in soil within hot beds or vinyl houses
arranged in neat rows. The next stage was sand culture and gravel culture using sand or
gravel in place of soil because these materials have fewer bacteria and are thus “cleaner.”
This was accompanied by a change in thinking—replacing the notion of forming rich soil
with that of administering nutrients—-which led to the creation and supply of nutrient
solutions. The only function of the sand and gravel was to support the plant, so a simpler,
more readily available material was sought. Plastic or polymer netting and containers
were developed in which seeds are “planted.” As these germinate and grow, the roots
extend out in all directions within the plastic netting. The stem and leaves are also
artificially supported, and the tightly sealed chamber in which the plants are grown is
completely sterile, eliminating the chance, at first, of insect damage or blight.
Since the root absorption of nutrients dissolved in water is inefficient, the nutrient
solution is sprayed on a regular basis over the entire plant. Nutrients are taken in not only
through the roots, but also through leaf surfaces, so they are more immediately available,
resulting in a higher growth rate. The temperature is increased and the level of light
exposure raised with artificial lighting. Carbon dioxide is sprayed and oxygen pumped in,
making plant growth several times faster than in field cultivation.
However, any product grown in such an artificial environment is a far cry from
products grown under natural conditions. True, freshly colored melons with a beautifully
networked skin and a sweet taste and fragrance can be produced, as can large red
tomatoes and supple green cucumbers of good texture. But it is a mistake to think of
these as good for man. Grown unnaturally as they are, these products are inferior in
quality, although perhaps in ways unknown to man. Nature has struck back fiercely
against this affront by technology, in the form of increased insect damage. Predictably,
the response by man has been an agriculture increasingly dependent on pesticides and
fertilizers.
Artificial cultivation leads ultimately to the total synthesis of food. The creation of
factories for purely chemical food synthesis that will render farms and gardens
unnecessary is already underway. This will make of agriculture an activity entirely
unrelated to nature.
The synthesis of urea has enabled man to produce any organic material he wishes.
Protein synthesis enables man-made meat to be fabricated from various materials. Butter
and cheese can- be made from petroleum. Sooner or later, as further progress is made in
research on photosynthesis, man will surely learn how to synthesize starch. He may even
succeed one day in doing this by the saccharification of wood and oil.
Man has learned how to synthesize nucleic acid and cellular proteins and nuclei, and is
beginning to synthesize and recombine genes and chromosomes. He has even begun
thinking that he can control life itself. Not only that. As the notion has settled in that he
may soon be able to alter all living things in any way he pleases, man has begun fancying
himself as the Creator. Yet all that he learns, all that he performs and creates with
science, is a mere imitation of nature and propels him further along the path to suicidal
self-destruction.
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