Rice and Winter Grain - The Course of Rice Cultivation in Japan - Many people assume that yields from natural farming are inferior to those of scientific farming, but in fact the very reverse is true ~ MASANOBU FUKUOKA

2.  Rice and Winter Grain
The Course of Rice Cultivation in Japan
In the Land of Ripening Grain, as the Japanese people have long been fond of calling
their country, rice cultivation held a deeper meaning for farmers than simply the growing
of a staple food crop. The farmer did not grow the rice, nature did; and the people born to
this  land  partook  of  its  blessings.  The  words  “bountiful  Land  of  Ripening  Grain”
expressed the joy of the Yamato people, who were able to receive the rich blessings of
heaven and earth with a grateful heart.
However,  once  man  began  to  think  that  he  grew  the  rice,  scientific  discrimination
arose,  creating  a  rift  between  the  rice  and  the  land.  People  lost  a  sense  of  unity  with
nature,  leaving  in  its  place  only  man’s  relationship  with  rice  cultivation  and  his
relationship with the soil. Modern thinking reduced rice to just another foodstuff. It began
to  view  the  work  of  farmers  engaged  in  rice  cultivation—service  to  God—as  an
economically inefficient and unscientific activity.Yet has rice really been just a food, a
material  object,  all  along?  Was  the  labor  of  farmers  merely  one  field  of  economic
activity? And have farmers been nothing more than laborers engaged in food production?
The Japanese people have lost sight of the true value of rice. They have forgotten the
spirit of gratitude with which farmers made offerings of their ripened rice to the gods to
celebrate the fruits of autumn. From the scientific perspective, this substance we call rice
has a value equivalent only to its nutritional value as a human food. Although the ripened
grain may be seen as a reward for human labor, there is no joy in the knowledge of this as
the product of a common effort by heaven, earth, and man. Nor is there any awe at the
emergence of this life of infinite majesty from nature’s midst. More than just the staff of
life, the rice grown on Japanese soil was the very soul of the Yamato people.
But as the activities of the farmer have been lowered in the common perception to the
production of rice as another foodstuff, a commercial article, the original purpose of rice
production has gradually been corrupted. The object no longer is the cultivation of rice,
but starch production, and more precisely, the pursuit of profits through the manufacture
and sale of starch. A natural consequence of this can be seen in the efforts by  farmers
today to raise income by raising yields.
Changes  in  Rice  Cultivation  Methods:  Rice  farming  in  Japan  has  passed  through
several stages recently which can be represented asfollows:
1) 1940—Primitive farming (improvements in tilling methods)
2) 1950—Animal-powered agriculture (increased fertilizer production)
3) 1960—Scientific farming (mechanization)
4) 1970—Agribusiness (energy-intensive systematized agriculture)
Prior  to  the  development  of  scientific  agriculture, rice  farmers  devoted  themselves
entirely to serving the land that grows the crops. But they gradually turned their attention
from the land to the problem of boosting soil fertility and discussion came to dwell on
what constitutes soil fertility.
Those  familiar  with  the  recent  history  of  Japanese  farming  will  know  that,  once  it
became clear that the most effective way to boost soil fertility was to till more deeply and
add  more  organic  material  to  the  soil,  campaigns  to improve  plows  and  hoes  and  to increase  compost  production  from  grass  cuttings  and straw  spread  throughout  the
country. Soil scientists showed that tilling the soil to a depth of one inch can yield five
bushels of rice per quarter-acre, and from this concluded that working the soil down to
five inches would yield 25 bushels.
Animal-powered agriculture was later pushed because heavy applications of manure
and  prepared  compost  were  known  to  help  achieve  high  yields.  Farmers  learned,
however, that preparing  compost is not easy work. Yields failed to improve enough to
justify the heavy labor required, peaking at about  22 bushels per quarter-acre. Efforts to
push  yields  even  higher  resulted  in  unstable  cultivation,  relegating  animal-powered
agriculture largely to the status of a model practice used by few farmers.
Much  research  is  being  done  today  on  the  morphology of  rice  at  various  stages  of
growth. Scientists are attempting also to achieve high yields through detailed comparative studies on the planting period, quantity of seed sown, number and spacing of transplanted seedlings,  and  depth  of  transplantation.  However,  because  none  of  the  resulting techniques has more than about a five percent effect on yields, efforts are underway to combine and consolidate these into one unified high-yielding technology.
Yet such efforts have failed to make any notable gains, save for occasional increases in  yield  in  low-yielding  areas  through  basic improvements,  better  water  drainage,  and
other correctives. Although Japanese agricultural technology appears to have progressed rapidly  over  the  last  fifty  years,  the  productivity of  the  land  has  declined.  In  terms  of quality, this period has been one of retreat rather than advance.
Because the emphasis in paddy-field rice production today is on the productivity of
labor, farmers scramble after returns and profits;  they have abandoned animal-powered
farming and wholeheartedly  embraced scientific farming,  especially mechanization and the use of chemicals. Much has been made of the organic farming methods taken up by a
small number of farmers out of concern over the polluting effects of scientific farming,
but  organic  farming  too  is  an  outgrowth  of  scientific  farming  that  is  oriented  toward
petroleum energy-intensive commercial agribusiness.
The  only  course  available  today  for  successfully  rejecting  scientific  farming  and
halting  its  rampant  growth  is  the  establishment  of  a  natural  way  of  farming  the agricultural mainstays: rice, barley, and wheat.
Barley and Wheat Cultivation
Until recently, barley and wheat, grown in most parts of Japan as winter grains, have
been second only to rice in their importance as food staples of the Japanese people. Along
with  brown  rice,  the  taste  of  cooked  rice  and  barley  was  something  dear  to  Japanese
farmers. Yet these winter grains are today in the process of vanishing from Japanese soil.
As recently as fifteen or twenty years ago, the paddy field was not neglected after the
rice  harvest  in  the  fall;  something  was  always  grown  there  during  the  winter  months.
Farmers  knew  that  productivity  per  unit  area  of  paddy  was  never  better  than  when  a summer rice crop was followed by a crop of barley or wheat in the winter. As soon as the
rice was harvested in the fall, the paddy field was plowed, ridges formed, and the barley
or  wheat  seed  sown.  This  was  done  because  winter  grain  was  thought  to  have  a  poor
resistance to moisture. Planting barley was no easy process. The farmer began by plowing up the field. He then  broke  up  the  clods  of  earth,  made  seed  furrows,  sowed  the  seed  in  the  furrows, covered the seed with dirt, and applied prepared compost. When this process was finally over, but before the year was out, he had to do the first weeding. He followed this early in
the new year with a second and third weeding. While weeding, he passed his hoe along
the rows, loosening the soil. Then he would gather  soil around the base of the plants to
prevent frost damage, and trample the shoots to promote root growth. After repeating this
process several times, he sprayed the young plants  twice with pesticide and left them to
mature.
All this work was done during the cold months, but harvesting time came at the end of
May, which felt even more swelteringly hot than midsummer. What’s more, if the crop
was late-maturing wheat or barley, the harvest usually took place during the rainy season,
which meant farmers had to go through the considerable trouble of drying the harvested
grain. Winter grain cultivation, then, was a very taxing process.
Some fifty  years ago, domestic wheat varieties were improved and the use of wheat
encouraged  to  hold  down  wheat  imports  from  the  United  States.  Wheat  was  widely
planted in place of barley and naked barley, but wheat grown for bread-making is late maturing for the Japanese climate and so its use resulted in unstable harvests. Then, from
around  1945,  the  Japanese  Ministry  of  Agriculture  and  Forestry,  deciding  that  wheat grown  domestically  could  not  compete  with  cheaper  foreign-grown  grain,  adopted  a
policy  of  increased  dependence  on  other  countries  for  the  supply  of  food  and  feed
provisions. This had the effect of causing farmers  in the domestic wheat belt to abandon
their production of wheat.
It was neither money nor labor that supported the arduous practice of double cropping
paddy fields with wheat or barley. It was pride. The farmer, afraid of being called lazy or
wasteful  if  he  left  his  fields  fallow  over  the  winter,  plowed  every  inch  of  available
Japanese soil. So when the farming authorities started saying that nobody had any need
for expensive wheat  and talking  about a euthanasia  of domestic wheat production, this
knocked the moral support out from under the farmer, speeding his physical and spiritual
downfall.  Over  the  past  five  years  or  so,  wheat  and barley  production  has  almost
disappeared in some localities.
Thirty years ago, Japan was still essentially self-sufficient in food production, but over
the  last  several  years,  calorie  self-sufficiency  has  dropped  below  the  40  percent  level.
This caused many to question Japan’s ability to secure necessary food resources and has
led once again to encouragement of domestic wheat and barley production. But is it really
possible to revive the former pride and spirit of the farmer?
Back  when  everyone  was  sold  on  the  idea  that  domestic  wheat  production  was
unnecessary, I kept telling people that there is a method of wheat and barley cropping that
will  give  us  grain  as  inexpensive  as  foreign  grain. I  also  maintained  that  the  prices  of
farm  products  should  basically  be  the  same  everywhere,  and  that  the  only  reason  they
were not was because economic manipulations made prices higher for some and lower
for others.
Few  field  crops  yield  as  many  calories  as  barley.  This  crop  is  well-suited  to  the
Japanese  climate  and  should  be  double-cropped,  as  in  the  past,  with  rice.  With  a  little resourceful planning and effort, most Japanese paddy fields could be readied for growing winter  grain.  Knowing  this,  I  have  consistently  maintained  that  a  continuous  rice  and barley or wheat succession must be made the mainstay of Japanese agriculture.
Natural Barley I Wheat Cropping:  I passed through three stages in moving toward the
natural  cultivation  of  barley  and  wheat:  1)  tillage and  ridge  cultivation,  2)  level-row,
light-tillage  or  no-tillage  cultivation,  and  3)  natural  Cropping  based  on  no-tillage
cultivation.
1. Tillage, ridging, and drilling:  In Japan, naked barley and wheat seed was normally
drilled at a seeding width of 6 to 7 inches on ridges spaced 3 feet apart.
Forty  years  ago,  most  farmers  and  agricultural  experts  thought  that  broad,  shallow seeding gave high yields, so I tried increasing the sowing area by 25 percent, 30 percent,
and 40 percent. First I increased the seeding width to 10 to 12 inches or more; not only
was there no observable improvement in yield, this  reduced stability of the crop. I then
tried sowing in two rows per ridge at a seeding width of 7 to 10 inches in ridges 4 feet
apart, but this resulted in excessive vegetative growth and a small number of heads.
Noting  that  a  narrower  seeding  width  increases  yield,  I  reduced  the  width  and
increased the distance between rows. By sowing in two rows on ridges spaced 3 feet apart
and setting the rows far enough apart to prevent plants in adjacent rows from crowding
each  other,  I  was  able  to  raise  my  yields.  But  this sowing  method  made  the  furrows
between ridges narrower and shallower and reduced ridge height, so that all inter tilling
and weeding had to be done entirely by hoe.
To increase harvest yields, I raised the number of  rows per ridge from two to three,
then  four.  Recently,  farmers  have  taken  narrow  seeding  widths  a  step  further  and  are drilling seeds in single file.
2. Light-tillage, low-ridge or level-row cultivation: Since seeding in three or four rows
on a 3-foot ridge results in a low ridge almost level with the ground, I switched to light tillage and drilled individual seeds in straight, narrow rows.
Although I had thought that naked barley had to be grown on high ridges, I found that
it can be grown using a simple light-tillage method. I noticed, moreover, that because the
young barley shoots are susceptible to moisture damage during light-tillage, a no-tillage
process works even better. So in 1950, I began studying seeding techniques that would
allow me to drill narrow rows on an unplowed field.This set me on the road toward a
natural method of growing barley and wheat.
There remained the problem of weed control, however. I tried sowing ladino clover as
a ground cover together with the barley, and scattered rice straw over the planted field.
No farmer at the time spread his paddy fields with  fresh straw and agricultural experts
strictly forbade anyone from leaving straw on the paddy for fear of disease. I went ahead
and used rice straw anyway because I had earlier confirmed beyond any doubt that rice
straw left on the ground during the autumn decomposes entirely by the following spring,
leaving no trace of pathogenic microbes. This cover of fresh straw showed great promise
in weed control.
3.  No-tillage, direct-seeding cultivation:  I built an experimental seeding device and
tried dibbling, then drilling, and finally individual seeding in furrows. As I was doing this and also making full use of a straw cover, I grew increasingly certain of the validity of
direct seeding without tillage. I went from sparse seeding to dense seeding, then returned
again to sparse seeding before I settled on my present method of broadcasting seed.

My experiments convinced me of the following:
a) No-tillage cultivation not only does not degrade the land being worked, it actually
improves  and  enriches  it.  This  was  demonstrated  by  more  than  ten  years  of  no-tillage direct-seeded rice/winter grain succession cropping.
b)  This  method  of  cultivation  is  extremely  simple,  yet  it  provides  total  germination
and weed control and is less laborious and higher yielding than other methods.
c) The full potential of this method can be tapped  only by combining it in a natural
farming rotation with direct-seeded rice.
From the very outset, I had wondered why rice and barley, both members of the grass
family, should be  grown so differently. Why  was it  that barley  could be sown directly
while rice had to be seeded in a starter bed then transplanted? And why was it that barley
was grown on ridges while rice was grown on a level field?  All along, I had felt that the
most natural method of cultivation for both was direct seeding on a level field. Yet, for a
long time the idea that rice and barley could be grown in the same way was nothing more
than pure conjecture.
But after long years of failure upon failure, somehow my methods of growing rice and
barley merged. I found mixed seeding and even simultaneous seeding to be possible. This
is when I became convinced that I had at last arrived at the foundation for a natural way
of farming.
Early Experiences with Rice Cultivation
As a youth, I set out first to become an agricultural specialist. Being the eldest son in a
farming family,  I  knew  that  I would have to return  to the land someday, but until that
time came I was determined to travel a free road.
My field of specialty was plant pathology. I learned the basics from Makoto Hiura at
Gifu Agricultural High School and got my practical  training under Suchiko Igata of the
Okayama  Prefecture  Agricultural  Testing  Center.  Afterwards,  I  transferred  to  the  Plant Inspection Division of the Yokohama Customs Bureau,where I did research under Eiichi Kurosawa  at  the  Division’s  research  laboratory  in  Yamate.  I  had  embarked  on  a  most ordinary course in life and could have spent those early years in the full bliss of youth.
But  my  fate  flew  off  in  an  unexpected  direction.  I  had  been  grappling  with  the
meaning of life and humanity when one night the truth came to me in a flash. I saw all of
a  sudden  that  nature  is  an  astounding  thing  that  cannot  be  named.  In  that  instant,  I understood the principle of “nothingness,” of Mu. This later gave birth to my method of natural farming, but at first I was totally absorbed by the conviction that there is nothing in this world, that man should live only in accordance with nature and has no need to do anything.
Researchers at agricultural testing stations still  had a measure of freedom in 1940. I did my work at the plant disease and pest section with just the right measure of diligence and was thus able to live within my dreams. I was fortunate indeed, as a heretic, to have the  freedom  of  working  within  science  and  exploring farming  techniques  that  refute science and technology.
However, as the war situation intensified, increasing food production became a more
urgent priority than basic scientific research and so all researchers at the laboratory were
mobilized  for  this  purpose.  The  directives  stated  that  starch  production  was  to  be
increased,  even  if  this  meant  cutting  the  production  of  other  crops.  1  was  sent  to  the
agricultural testing station in Kochi Prefecture.
While 1 was there, the local agricultural administration implemented a bold new plan
of a type rarely attempted before. This called for  the eradication of the yellow rice borer
through post-season rice cultivation. Because post-season cultivation made collective use
of the most advanced rice growing technology of the day, knowing something about this
method gave one a good idea of where scientific farming stood technically at the time.
Rice  cultivation  practices  throughout  Kochi  Prefecture  were  everywhere  different.
Farmers  on  the  centrally  located  Kacho  Plain,  for  example,  double-cropped  their  rice, while  farmers  in  other  areas  of  the  prefecture  variously  practiced  early-season,
mid season, or late-season cropping pretty much as they wished. As a result, transplanting
started in April and continued on through early August.
In spite of its warm climate, which seemed ideal for rice production, Kochi had the
second lowest rice yields of any prefecture in Japan. What was needed here then was not
technology for expanding production so much as an understanding of the causes for the
low  yields.  The  situation  called  for  the  immediate  development  of  methods  to  stem
production  losses.  I  remember  commenting  on  how  there  wasn’t  “a  single  healthy  rice
plant on the Kacho Plain,” an indiscretion for which I was roundly criticized. But facts
are facts, and there was no disputing that to increase production in Kochi, the first step
would have to be curbing production losses by diseases and pests. The upshot was that a
plan for eradicating the yellow rice borer was drawn up, leading to the promulgation by
prefectural edict of a rice cultivation control ordinance.
All  the  scientists  and  technicians  in  the  prefectural  crop  production,  agricultural
testing,  and  agricultural  cooperatives  divisions  joined  in  a  common  effort  to  guide  the prefecture’s  farmers  in  carrying  out  this  post-season  cultivation  program.  Now  that  I think of it, although this happened during the war,I cannot help marveling at how such an ambitious pest control program was conducted. Not only was this sort of rice-growing reformation  virtually  unheard-of  in  Kochi,  it  is  rare  in  the  annals  of  rice  cultivation  in Japan.  The  program  was  to  be  carried  out  in  phases, covering  a  different  part  of  the
prefecture during each of three successive years.
We took advantage of the fact that the yellow rice borer does not feed on plants other
than  rice.  The  idea  was  to  eliminate  the  rice  borers  through  starvation  by  ensuring  the absence of  all rice plants during the first period  of rice borer  emergence. Farmers in a
one-  or  two-district  area  were  forbidden  from  planting  rice  until  July  8  of  that  year.
Although  the  reasoning  behind  this  eradication  plan was  quite  simple,  I  can  remember agonizing  over  which  day  in  July  to  set  as  the  end  of  the  rice  borer’s  first  emergence period. A mistake would have been a very serious matter.
Specialists  in  another  area  had  it  even  tougher.  Waiting  until  early  July  to  begin
growing  rice  meant  drastically  shortening  the  growing  season,  a  risky  proposition  for
both the farmer and the technician. This was Kochi,where farmers began transplanting
very early-season rice in April and continued planting early-season, mid season, and late season rice, followed in some cases by a second crop, right through to early August. Add
also the fact that local farmers saw this as the best possible method of cultivation in their
area, both in terms of business and improving  yields.  It should not be hard to imagine
then how much trouble we had in gaining the understanding and cooperation of farmers
with a program that brought local growing practices under government control and placed
all bets on a single post-season rice crop that could not be transplanted until early July.
Other  technicians  had  their  hands  full  too,  since  all  tilling  and  seeding  methods,  as
well  as  the  fertilizing  schedules,  had  to  be  changed  to  accord  with  July  transplanting.
There  were  also  many  other  changes  to  make,  such  as modifications  in  cultivation
practices  and  in  the  rice  cultivars  used.  It  was  a  true  technical  reformation  in  every
respect.
The  crop  science  division,  for  example,  had  to  take measures  to  cope  with  delayed
transplantation.  These  included  I)  increasing  the  number  of  rice  plants  and  seedlings
transplanted to the paddy; 2) expanding the size of nursery beds; 3)  getting farmers to
prepare  raised,  semi-irrigated  rice  seed  beds;  4)  selection  of  post-season  varieties  and procurement  of  seed  rice;  5)  securing  labor  and  materials;  and  6)  overseeing  the
preceding  barley  crop.  The  fertilizer  division  had  its  hands  full  with  changes  in  the fertilization  schedule  and  making  sure  that  farmers adhered  to  the  new  schedule.  They had to come up with a schedule that would curb declines in harvests from post-season cultivation and actually push for expanded production. Specialists in each division were expected to be familiar with plans and affairs in all other divisions. Professional opinions
from each division were combined into a single collective plan of action. All specialists
acted in concert, and familiarizing themselves with the same overall set of techniques in
the  program,  went  out  one  by  one  to  their  appointed towns  and  villages  where  they
supervised local implementation of the program.
Before  the  prefectural  edict  was  issued,  local  farmers  lodged  a  hundred  objections
against  post-season  rice  cultivation,  but  once  the  policy  was  set,  the  farmers  of  Kochi Prefecture made a full about-face and gave their total, undivided cooperation. It was an enterprise carried out on a grand scale.
Second Thoughts on Post-Season Rice Cultivation
The outcome of the Kochi post-season cultivation program, conducted to exterminate
the yellow rice borer and increase food production  through rice/barley double-cropping, was  mixed:  the  yellow  rice  borer  was  completely  eliminated,  but  we  were  unable  to increase crop production. What is one to make of these results?
First, it might be good to examine the viability of post-season cultivation as a means
for  controlling  the  rice  borer.  Just  how  well  was  the  real  extent  of  rice  borer  damage investigated  and  understood  initially?  Damage  by  rice  borers  always  tends  to  be overestimated  since  white  heads  of  grain  due  to  post-heading  damage  stand  out  in  the field. This degree of damage is often mistakenly assumed to translate directly into harvest losses. Even when the crop seems a total loss, damage is generally at most about thirty percent and actual losses are no more than twenty percent. And damage is generally at most  ten  to  twenty  percent  even  during  severe  infestations.  More  importantly,  the
reduction in final yield is almost always under ten percent, and often even less than five
percent.  The  overall  rate  of  damage  over  a  wide  area  then  is  usually  grossly
overestimated.
Damage  by  disease  and  insect  pests  is  usually  highly  localized.  Even  in  a  large
regional  outbreak  of  rice  borer,  close  examination  reveals  widely  differing  degrees  of infestation; there may be some fields with thirty percent damage and others with virtually
no damage at all. Science prefers to overlook those fields that have been spared and focus
instead  on  severely  infested  fields.  Natural  farming,  on  the  other  hand,  devotes  its
attention to the fields that escape damage.
If one small section of a large rice field contains rice grown with lots of fertilizer, rice
borers congregate on this soft, vulnerable rice. The farmer could take advantage of this
behavior  by  collecting  the  insects  in  one  area  and  destroying  them;  but  what  would
happen  if  he  left  them  alone?  Although  one  might  expect  them  to  spread  out  to
surrounding fields and cause extensive damage, this just does not happen. Damage would
be  limited  to  the  small  sacrificial  area—maybe  no  more  than  one  percent  of  the  field under cultivation.
During  the  fall,  sparrows  gather  about  the  ripening heads  of  grain,  causing  serious
damage. If, unable to stand by and do nothing, one puts out scarecrows to chase the birds
away,  then  the  farmer  in  the  next  field  feels  he  has  to  put  scarecrows  out  too.  This
snowballs and before you know it everyone in the village is busy chasing away sparrows
and laying netting over their fields to keep the birds out. Does this mean that if no one did
anything the sparrows would devastate the fields? Certainly not. The number of sparrows
is not determined simply by the amount of grain available. Other factors such as minor
crops  and  the  presence  of  bamboo  groves  in  which  to roost  all  come  into  play.  So  do
climatic  factors  such  as  snow  in  the  winter  and  summer  heat,  and,  of  course,  natural
enemies. Sparrows do not multiply suddenly when the rice begins heading.
The same is true also of rice borers. They do not multiply or go into a decline all of a
sudden simply because of the amount of rice growing. Rice borers were singled out in
Kochi because they feed only on rice. Nature does not go on unbalanced rampages. It has
mechanisms  for  self-control  in  places  unknown  to  man.  What  sense  does  it  make  if, having  exterminated  yellow  rice  borers,  damage  by  rice  stem  borers  and  cutworms
increases? Insect pests and crop diseases sometimes offset each other. On the other hand,
a decline in insect infestation, followed by rice blast disease or sclerotium rot can open up
a new can of worms. No in-depth study was conducted so there is no way of knowing for
certain,  but  the  lack  of  a  significant  increase  in  yields  despite  elimination  of  the  rice borers suggests that this is what may have happened in Kochi.
The first thing that pops into the head of an agricultural scientist when he sees a pest
emerge  in  the  fields  is  how  to  kill  it.  Instead,  he should  examine  the  causes  of  the
outbreak and cut off the problem at its roots. This, at any rate, is the way natural farming
would handle the matter. Of course, scientific farming does not neglect, in its own way,
to  determine  the  cause  of  rice  borer  emergence  and  take  measures  against  this.  It  was easy enough at Kochi to imagine that the large infestation of yellow rice borers probably arose  from  developments  in  vegetable  growing  such  as  the  spread  of  forced  vegetable cultivation.  This  and  other  factors,  including  the  disorderly  and  continuous  planting  of rice, provided an ideal environment for just such an outbreak.
But we doubled back before finding the true cause and concentrated all our efforts on
eradication of the visible pest. For instance, we did not bother to investigate whether the
disorder in the rice planting schedules invites outbreaks of the rice borer. The number of
borers that emerge in the first generation each year is thought to be dependent on normal
overwintering  of  the  insects,  but  so  long  as  the connection  between  the  rice  stubble  in
which  the  borer  spends  the  winter  and  the  chaotic  local  planting  practices  remains
unclear, one cannot attribute a borer outbreak to disorderly planting merely because lots
of food is available for the borers. There must have been other reasons why the yellow
rice borer, rice stem borer, and other insect pests were so numerous in Kochi Prefecture. I
think  that  the  cause  had  less  to  do  with  the  environment  than  with  poor  methods  of
cultivating rice.
There is something basically wrong with arbitrarily deciding that this insect in front of
one is a’pest and trying to destroy it. Before the war, attempts were made to wipe out the
rice borer by putting up light traps all over the  Kochi Plain. The same thing was tried
again  after  the  war  with  a  blanket  application  of  organo-phosphate  pesticides.  The campaign  against  the  yellow  rice  borer  through  post-season  cultivation  may  have
appeared as a drastic measure, but eradicating one  pest out of dozens was bound to end
up as nothing more than a temporary expedient.
It must be remembered that diseases and pest damage are self-defense measures taken
by nature to restore balance when the natural order has been disturbed. Pests are a divine
warning that something has gone wrong, that the natural balance of rice plants has been
upset. People must realize that nature’s way of restoring an abnormal or diseased body is
to fight fire with fire, to use naturally occurring disease and infestation to counter further
disease and pest damage.
Rice growth in Kochi Prefecture, with its warm temperatures and high humidity, is too
luxuriant.  Disease  and  pest  attack  is  one  method  taken  by  nature  for  suppressing
excessive  growth,  but  man  applies  a  near-sighted  interpretation,  seeing  such  damage rather as injury and harm. These outbreaks have a role to play in the natural scheme of things.
If  someone  were  to  ask  me  then  just  how  successful  our  post-season  cultivation
program in Kochi was at increasing food production—the goal of the program, I would
have to answer that such cultivation, in spite of the daring methods used, never had the
makings of an enduring yield-increasing technique.
Even in the selection of a cultivar, for example, scientific farming normally chooses a
thermo-sensitive variety for early planting and a photosensitive variety for late planting,
so  for  post-season  cultivation  we  factored  in  both  photo sensitivity  and  cumulative
temperature, and selected a cultivar appropriate for July planting. What we were doing, very simply, was selecting a cultivar suited to an artificially chosen period. There were no real  standards  to  guide  us.  The  only  role  of  the  cultivar  was  to  meet  certain  goals established according to the needs of the moment. The post-season cultivar selected was merely one that would not reduce yields when planted in July; in no way was it capable of positively raising yields.
We had no idea either of what the best time was for planting, a factor thought to play a
key  role  in  determining  yields.  We  chose  post-season  planting  simply  as  a  measure
against  the  rice  borer.  Crop  cultivation  techniques based  on  late  planting  are  all  mere stopgap measures for holding crop losses to a minimum. These, like the techniques we
employed in post-season cultivation, have no other effect than to maintain the status quo.
That  this  post-season  cultivation  program,  which  represented  a  cross-section  of  the
most advanced agricultural technology of the time, succeeded only in preventing further
losses  was  very  significant,  for  it  demonstrated  that,  since  the  purpose  of  scientific agriculture  is  always  and  everywhere  convenience  to man,  no  matter  how  large  and complete  the  technology  amassed,  it  will  never  amount  to  more  than  a  temporary expedient.
This incident taught me not to rely on human action and strengthened my resolve to
move toward a natural way of farming.
First Steps Toward Natural Rice Farming
At  Kochi,  while  I  took  part  in  the  common  effort  to scientifically  increase  food
production, I inwardly searched for what I believed to be the true path of agriculture—
natural farming. I had  yet no clear image of natural farming; all 1 could do was grope
blindly for a way of farming I had never seen but knew must exist. During this period, I
did stumble across a number of important clues, one of which was the ability of nature to
“plant without sowing seed.”
Natural  Seeding:  The  year  that  we  began  our  program  of  post-season  cultivation  to
eradicate the yellow rice borer, I was assigned to an eastern district of the prefecture. My
job was to make certain that not a single stalk of  rice remained standing as food for the
season’s first generation of rice borers until the  end of June. I combed the entire district,
making my rounds from the hilly back country and mountains to the coast.
Once, as I was passing through a pine wood along the shore at Kotogahama, I spotted
a  large  number  of  young  rice  seedlings  that  had  sprouted  from  unhulled  seed  spilled
where  farmers  had  threshed  rice  the  year  before.  This  volunteer  rice  later  led  to  my
method of biennial, or overwintering, cultivation. Curiously enough, having caught sight of  this  once,  I  later  noticed,  again  and  again,  overwintered  rice  germinating  from  seed still attached to rice straw.
Nature then “plants without sowing seed.” This realization was my first step toward
natural rice cropping, but it was not enough in itself. 1 learned from this only that rice
seed sown by man in the autumn does not easily survive the winter.
In  nature,  the  grain  ripens  in  the  autumn  and  falls to  the  ground  as  the  leaves  and
stalks  of  the  rice  plant  wither  and  die.  And  yet,  nature  is  very  subtle.  Long  ago,  rice shattered as easily as other grasses, the grains falling in a certain order, starting at the top of  the  panicle  and  going  on  down.  The  chances  of  a  seed  that  falls  to  the  ground  of surviving intact until the following spring are less than one in a million. Almost all are
consumed by birds and rodents or destroyed by disease. Nature can be a very cruel world.
However,  a  closer  look  reveals  that  the  vast  quantity  of  grain  which  appears  as
unnecessary  waste  serves  a  very  important  purpose  by  providing  food  for  insects  and
small  animals  during  the  winter  months.  But  nature  was  not  so  indulgent  as  to  leave
enough grain lying around to feed people who just sit and do nothing.
Well over ten years later, I finally succeeded in developing a long-lasting protectant—
consisting of a mixture of pesticide and synthetic  resin—with which to coat rice seed for protection  against  winter  damage  by  rodents  and  other  pests.  My  next  step  was  to eliminate the need for this protectant, which I was able to do by sowing seed enclosed in
clay pellets.
While at Kochi, 1 also observed shoots growing from rice stubble in harvested fields. I
was  traveling  all  over  the  prefecture  investigating how  summer  and  fall  leaf-hoppers overwinter—of  which  little  was  known  at  the  time—when  I  observed  the  ability  of regenerated rice shoots and certain harmful grasses to survive the winter.
In areas not hit by frost, it should be possible to make use of such rice shoots. If new
shoots growing from the stubble of a harvested first crop or a crop of early-maturing rice
are rejuvenated by an application of fertilizer, a goodly quantity of regenerated rice might
be  reaped  from a quarter-acre. Surely nothing  could be better than  growing a biannual crop or two crops successively rather than having to repeatedly transplant. Why should we  cling  to  the  narrow  view  of  rice  as  an  annual  crop  that  is  sown  in  the  spring  and harvested in the fall? Although I have been intrigued by the possibility of harvesting rice twice after one seeding or even overwintering it and growing it as a perennial, I have not yet  succeeded  in  finding  a  practical  way  to  do  this.  I  believe,  however,  that  the  idea definitely warrants investigation in warmer parts of Japan and in certain other countries.
The conclusions of natural farming were evident from the start, but it was achieving
these  in  practice  that  took  so  long.  I  had  to  spend many  years  observing  in  order  to
understand  the  conditions  under  which  rice  seed  will  overwinter.  And  even  if  I
understood why it would not overwinter in a particular instance and was able to eliminate
the  reasons,  I  preferred  not  to  use  scientific  means  or  pesticides.  I  pondered  too  the
meaning and worth of cultivating perennial rice.
Natural farming does not treat the planting of seed separately, but relates it to all other
aspects  of  rice  production.  In  contrast,  scientific farming  divides  rice  cultivation  into
narrow  specialties;  experts  on  germination  attend  to  problems  of  seed  germination,
specialists  in  tillage  address  tilling  problems,  and  likewise  with  seeding,  transplanting, and other areas.
Natural  farming  treats  everything  as  part  of  a  whole.  The  problems  may  differ,  but
solving them independently is totally meaningless. In rice cultivation, preparing the field, sowing the seed, tilling, covering the seed with soil, fertilizing, weeding, and disease and
pest control are all organically interrelated. No problem in any one area is truly solved
unless a common solution is found for all areas.
One thing is all things. To resolve one matter, one must resolve all matters. Changing
one thing changes all things. Once I made the decision to sow rice in the fall, I found that
I  could  also  stop  transplanting,  and  plowing,  and  applying  chemical  fertilizers,  and preparing compost, and spraying pesticides.
Biennial cultivation proved to be both a step forward and a step back because I had to
decide first whether to transplant or to seed the fields directly.
Natural Direct Seeding: I began studying direct seeding when I realized that all plants
in nature seed directly. It occurred to me that, the transplantation of rice seedlings being a
human invention, natural rice cultivation must involve direct seeding. So I tried sowing
rice seed in the autumn. But my seed did not survive the winter and the attempt was a
total failure. The reason was perfectly clear. Modern rice and other cultivated grains have
been genetically improved for centuries; they are no longer natural and can never return
to nature. In fact, sowing today’s improved seed by a method that approximates nature is
unnatural in itself. These plants require some form of protection and human care.
Yet,  making  use  of  an  unnatural  method  of  cultivation  just  because  a  cultivar  is
unnatural only moves the rice even further away from nature and evokes stronger natural
repercussions. The grain was no longer natural, yet there had to be a more natural way to
grow it. In addition to which, simply giving up all attempts because “overwintering rice
seed is difficult” and “barley cannot be carried through the summer” would have ended
the  matter  then  and  there  without  the  least  hope  of getting  an  insight  into  the  deepest
designs of nature. So I set my sights on learning why rice does not overwinter.
In 1945, before I had gotten very far on this, I ran a different experiment in which I
direct-seeded onto a plowed and flooded paddy field in the spring. I followed the same
procedure as for preparation of a rice nursery bed,first plowing the field, then flooding
and tilling it. After this was done, I seeded directly.
The experiment consisted of drilling, seeding in straight rows, and broadcasting. The
main  object  was  to  examine  the  effects  of  different sowing  techniques  and  the  sowing
rate  and  density.  I  planted  approximately  20,  30,  60,  100,  230,  and  1000  seeds
individually  per  square  yard.  The  results  were  pretty  much  as  I  had  expected  and  yet surprising. Aside from the extremely dense planting, the number of heads per square yard
was about 400-500 in all cases, and the number of grains per head from 60 to 120. Yields
were therefore about the same.
Several problems did arise. For example, where the soil was rich in organic matter and bad  water  collected,  the  seed  sunk  into  the  ground  and  germination  was  poor.  1  also
noticed that deep flooding of the field resulted in plants that tended to lodge easily. But,
all in all, rice generally grew well when direct-seeded on plowed and irrigated paddy.
I spent so much time weeding that I doubt this method had much practical value at the
time. But with the good herbicides around today, direct seeding on an unplowed, poorly
drained, or moderately drained field is definitely possible.
Early Attempts at Direct-Seeding, No-Tillage Rice/Barley Succession
I tried many different ways of direct seeding, but  since the method J used initially to
plant the preceding barley crop was to drill seeds  on high ridges, I picked up the idea of
drilling the rice seed in the furrows between the ridges from a “lazy man’s” method of
sowing attempted by some farmers long ago. This led to a later technique I used of direct seeding  rice  between  rows  of  barley.  I  direct-seeded  rice  between  barley  for  several
years, but 1 had so much trouble with rice  germination and weed control that  I finally
gave  this  method  up  as  impractical.  During  this  period,  however,  I  was  experimenting
with many other methods, which gave me some fresh ideas. Here are a few of the things I
tried.
Direct Seeding of Rice between Barley:
1) Germination of the rice seed was poor. There was no way to fight off mole crickets,
sparrows, and mice. I tried using pesticides, but was unable to achieve full germination.
2) After harvesting the barley, I tried inter tilling the soil on the ridges with a hoe, and
also leveling the field by transferring ridge soil  into the furrows between the ridges, but
this was arduous work.
3) Even when I irrigated the fields, water retention was poor and weeds grew on high
ridge areas exposed above the surface of the water.I had a great deal of trouble dealing
both  with  weeds  along  the  water’s  edge  and  in  the  water,  and  with  the  complicated
pattern  of  weed  emergence.  Use  of  herbicides  was  more  difficult  than  for  transplanted
rice, which further complicated weed control.
4) Finally, after having pondered over the best way to weed, I thought of controlling
weeds  with  weeds,  and  tried  sowing  the  clover  and  Chinese  milk  vetch  that  I  was
experimenting with in my orchard over the ridges of maturing barley one month before
the barley harvest so as to get a rich growth of these herbs among the barley. This method
was not immediately successful, but it gave me another important clue that was to lead
later on to my method of rice and barley cropping in a ground cover of clover.
5) I tried sowing vegetable seeds such as mustards,beans, and squash, and although
none of these grew well enough to be of much use for home consumption, this taught me
something about the relationships between specific crops in a rotation.
6) I then tried the opposite: seeding and growing rice in fields of tomato, eggplant, and
cucumber. Rice yields were better here than my attempts at raising vegetables in a rice
paddy  and  growing  rice  after  harvesting  the  vegetables,  although  I  did  have  some
problems with field work.
Direct-Seeding Rice/Barley Succession:
I mentioned earlier that because my research on the direct seeding of rice on drained
fields  was  tied  in  with  the  direct  seeding  of  barley,  as  my  method  of  barley  cropping
progressed  from high-ridge to low-ridge to level-field cultivation, my method of direct
seeding  rice  followed  suit,  moving  toward  level-field,  direct-seeding  cultivation.  From
seeding in single rows at wide, 18-inch intervals,  I went to planting in narrowly spaced rows 6 to 8 inches apart, then to planting seeds individually at intervals of 6 by 8 inches, and  finally  I  direct-seeded  naked  barley  over  the  entire  surface  of  the  field  without plowing  or  tilling.  This  was  the  start  of  the  no-tillage  direct-seeding  of  naked  barley.
Because  my  method  resulted  in  the  high-yield  cultivation  of  barley  and  the  dense individual planting of seed, I found it increasingly difficult to sow rice seed among the
barley.  One  reason  was  the  lack  of  a  planter  at  the time  that  could  seed  effectively between barley plants.
I  had  learned  therefore  that  naked  barley  can  be  grown  quite  well  by  sowing  seeds
individually  on  a  level,  unplowed  field.  Having  also  found  that  rice  sown  at  the  same seeding interval among the barley stubble grows very well, it dawned on me that, since I
was using exactly the same method for growing both  rice and barley, and was growing
these two crops in succession one after the other,  both crops could be grown as a single
cropping  system.  I  chose  to  call  this  system  “direct-seeding,  no-tillage  rice/barley
succession.”
However, this system was not the result of a sudden flash of inspiration.  It was the
outcome of many twists and turns. When I learned the inconvenience of direct-seeding
rice between barley stubble, I decided to run tests to determine whether to direct-seed rice
after harvesting the barley or to broadcast the rice seed over the heads of barley ten to
twenty days before cutting the barley.
Scattering rice seed over the standing heads of barley is truly an extensive method of
cultivation,  but  seed  losses  due  to  sparrows  and  mole  crickets  were  lighter  than  I  had
expected and percent germination quite good. Although I thought this to be an interesting
method, I practiced it only in one corner of my field and did not pursue it any further at
the  time,  preferring  instead  to  concentrate  on  the  direct-seeding  of  rice  following  the
barley harvest.
I did make an attempt to plant rice seed directly onto the harvested barley field without
plowing, but this did not work out well with the planter and the rice seed merely fell to
the ground resulting in a shallow planting depth. I remember feeling then that sowing the
rice  seed  over the standing barley  would have been  preferable, but  for various reasons
having to do with the method of cultivation and ease of lodging, I decided to try direct
seeding on a shallow-tilled field instead. Also, because I continued to believe at the time
that the most important condition for high barley and rice yields was deep plowing, I felt
that tilling was a necessary precondition for the direct seeding of rice.
But direct-seeding with shallow plowing turned out to be more difficult than I thought,
for it required harrowing and leveling just as in the preparation of a seed bed for rice.
And the risks are very great, especially in only partially drained fields and during years of
abundant rainfall. If rain falls on the plowed field before seeding, the field turns to mud,
making  direct  seeding  impossible.  After  repeated  failures  over  a  number  of  years,  I
decided to go with the principle of direct seeding without tilling of any sort.
Direct-Seeding, No-Tillage Rice / Barley Succession:
Today  I  use  the  term  “direct-seeding,  no-tillage  rice/barley  succession”  without
thinking twice about it, but until I was fully convinced that the field does not have to be
plowed or worked, it took incredible resolve for me to say “no-tillage” and propose this
method of cultivation to others.
This  was  at  a  time  when,  despite  scattered  attempts to  “half-plow”  wheat  or  adopt
simplified methods of preparing the rice field for  planting, the conventional wisdom held
deep plowing to be necessary and indispensable  for  producing high  yields of both rice
and barley. To abstain from plowing and tilling a field year after year was unthinkable.
I have grown rice and barley without any plowing for well over twenty years now. My
observations during that period, coupled with other insights, have gradually deepened my
conviction that the paddy field does not need to be plowed. But this conviction is based
largely on observation, as I have not conducted studies and collected data on the soil. Yet,
as one soil scientist who examined my field put it:“A study can look at the changes that
arise with no-tillage farming, but it can’t be used to judge the merit of no-tillage farming
based on conventional ideas.”
The  ultimate  goal  is  the  harvest.  The  answer  to  this  question  of  merit  depends  on
whether rice yields decline or increase when no-tillage farming is continued. This is what
I wanted to find out. At first, I too expected that yields would drop off after several years
of continuous no-tillage farming. But perhaps because i returned all rice and barley straw
and hulls to the land, during the entire period that I have used this method, I have never
seen any sign of a decline in yields due to reduced soil fertility. This experience sealed
my conviction that no-tillage farming is sound in practice and led me to adopt this as a
basic principle of my farming method.
In 1962, I reported these experiences of mine in an article entitled “The Truth about
Direct-Seeding  Rice  and  Barley  Cultivation,”  published  in  a  leading  farming  and gardening  journal  in  Japan.  This  was  regarded  as  a  highly  singular  contribution,  but apparently acted as a strong stimulus on those interested in the direct seeding of rice. One high-ranking  official  in  the  Ministry  of  Agriculture  and  Forestry  at  the  time  was
delighted,  calling  it  “research  in  a  class  by  itself  ...  a  guiding  light  for  Japanese  rice
cultivation ten years hence.”
Natural Rice and Barley/Wheat Cropping
I  adopted  the  standpoint  of  natural  farming  early  on,  and  discontinuing  the
transplantation of rice, sought my own method of rice and barley direct seeding. In the
process,  I  gradually  approached  a unified technique of direct-seeding naked barley and
rice without tilling that brought me a step closer to my goal. This can be thought of as the
antecedent of the direct-seeded upland rice cropping methods practiced widely today. At
the  time,  nobody  would  have  thought  that  rice  and  naked  barley  could  be  grown  on  a
level field left continuously unplowed.
Later, as a result of determined efforts to reject  the use of pesticides and fertilizers, I
began a method of cultivation in keeping with my goal of natural farming: a very simple
form  of  continuous,  no-tillage  rice/barley  cropping involving  direct  seeding  and  straw
mulching. I adopted this as the basic pattern for natural farming.
This method was studied at a large number of agricultural testing stations throughout
Japan. In almost every instance, researchers found  there to be no basic problem with the
no-tillage, succession cropping of rice and barley  using straw mulch. But weed control
remained  a  problem,  so  I  worked  on  this  and  after  a great  deal  of  effort  and  repeated experimentation, modified my basic method by adding a ground cover of green manure, the mixed seeding of rice and barley, and biennial cultivation.
I called this the basic pattern of natural rice and barley fanning because I was certain
that  this  technique  enabled  the  farmer  for  the  first  time  to  farm  without  using  any
pesticides or chemical fertilizers. And I referred  to it also as the “clover revolution” in
rice and barley cropping to voice my opposition to modern scientific farming with its use
of chemicals and large machinery.
Direct-Seeding, No-Tillage Barley/Rice Succession with Green Manure Cover
This is a method for the companion cropping of leguminous green manure plants with
rice and barley or wheat, all members of the grass family.
Cultivation  Method:  In  early  or  mid-October,  I  sow  clover  seeds  over  the  standing heads  of  rice,  then  about  two  weeks  before  harvesting  the  rice,  I  sow  barley  seed.  I harvest  the  rice  while  treading  over  the  young  barley  seedlings,  and  either  dry  the  cut grain  on  the  ground  or  on  racks.  After  threshing  and  cleaning  the  dried  grain,  I immediately  scatter  the  straw  uncut  over  the  entire field  and  apply  chicken  manure  or decomposed organic matter. If I wish to overwinter  my rice, I enclose rice seed in clay pellets  and  scatter  these  over  the  field  in  mid-November  or  later.  This  completes  the sowing of rice and barley for the coming year. In the spring, a thick layer of clover grows at the foot of the maturing barley, and beneath the clover, rice seedlings begin to emerge.
When I cut the barley in late May, the rice seedlings are perhaps an inch or two high.
The clover is cut together with the barley, but this does not interfere with the harvesting
work.  After  leaving  the  barley  on  the  ground  to  dry for  three  days,  I  gather  it  into bundles, then thresh and clean it. I scatter the barley straw uncut over the entire field, and
spread over this a layer of chicken manure. The trampled rice seedlings emerge through
this barley straw and the clover grows back also.
In early June, when the rich growth of clover appears about to choke out the young
rice seedlings, I plaster the levees around the field with mud and hold water in the field
for four to seven days To weaken the clover. After  this, I surface-drain the field in order
to  grow  as  hardy  plants  as  possible.  During  the  first  half  of  the  rice  growing  season,
irrigation is not strictly necessary, but depending on how the plants are growing, water may be passed briefly over the field once every week to ten days. I continue to irrigate
intermittently during the heading stage, but make it a point not to hold water for more
than five days at a stretch. A soil moisture level of eighty percent is adequate.
During the first half of its growing season, the rice does well under conditions similar
to those in upland rice cultivation, but in the second half of the season irrigation should
be increased with plant growth. After heading, the rice requires lots of water and without
careful attention could become dehydrated. For yields of about one ton per quarter-acre, I
do not make use of standing water, but careful water management is a must.
Farm work:  This method of rice cultivation is extremely simple, but because it is a
highly  advanced  technique,  quite  unlike  extensive  farming,  each  operation  must  be
performed  with  great  precision.  Here  is  a  step-by-step  description  of  the  operations,
starting at the time of rice harvest in the fall.
1. Digging drainage channels:The first thing one has to do when preparing a normal
paddy field for the direct-seeded no-tillage cropping of rice and barley is to dig drainage
channels.  Water  is  normally  held  in  the  paddy  throughout  the  rice  growing  season,
turning the soil to a soft mud. As harvest time approaches, the surface must be drained
and dried to facilitate harvesting operations. Two  or three weeks before the rice is cut, a
water  outlet  is  cut  through  the  levee  surrounding  the  field  and  the  surface  of  the  field drained. A row of rice about the perimeter is dug up with a cultivator, transferred inward out of the way, and a drainage channel dug. For good drainage, the channel must be dug deeply and carefully. To do this, make a furrow in the soil with the end of a long-handled sickle, dig up the rice plants along the furrow, then shape a channel about 8 inches deep and 8 inches wide by lifting the soil
aside with a hoe.
After the rice has been harvested, dig similar drainage channels in the field at intervals
of  12  to  15  feet.  These  provide  sufficient  drainage to  enable  good  growth  of  green
manure crops and barley even in a moist field. Once dug, these drainage channels can be
used for many years in both rice and barley cultivation.
2. Harvesting, threshing, and cleaning the rice:Cut the rice while trampling over the
clover  and  the  young,  two-  to  three-leaf  barley  shoots.  Of  course,  the  rice  may  be
harvested mechanically, but where the size of the field permits, it is both sufficient and
economical to harvest with a sickle and thresh with a pedal-powered drum.
3. Seeding clover, barley, and rice:
Seeding method:  When seeded over the standing heads of rice, the clover and barley
seed  readily  germinate  because  of  the  high  soil  moisture.  Winter  weeds  have  not  yet
appeared, so this is helpful for controlling weeds.The barley and rice seed may be drilled
or sown individually in straight rows following the rice harvest, but broadcasting directly
over  the  maturing  heads  of  rice  requires  less  work  and  is  beneficial  for  germination,
seedling growth, and weed control.
Seeding date and quantity per quarter-acre:
Clover  1 lb.    September-October and March-April
Barley  6.5-22 lbs.   end of October to mid-November
Rice  6.5-22 lbs.   mid-November to December
When aiming for high yields, it is a good idea to seed sparsely and evenly, but seed 22
pounds each office and barley initially.
Variety:  For normal yields, use varieties suited to your area, but for high yields, use
hardy, panicle weight type varieties with erect leaves.
Overwintering  rice:  The  seed  will  have  to  be  coated.  Seeds  coated  with  a  synthetic
resin solution containing fungicide and pesticide and sown in the autumn will survive the winter. To eliminate the use of pesticides, enclose the seeds in clay pellets and scatter the
pellets over the field.
Preparing the clay pellets:  The simplest method is to mix the seeds in at least a five-
to ten-fold quantity of well-crushed clay or red earth, add water, and knead until hard by
treading. Pass the kneaded mixture through a half-inch screen and dry for a half-day, then
shape  the  clay  mixture  into  half-inch  pellets  by  rolling  with  the  hands  or  in  a  mixer.
There may be several (4-5) seeds in each pellet, but with experience this can be brought
closer to the ideal of one seed per pellet.
To prepare one-seed pellets, place the seed moistened with water in a bamboo basket
or  a  mixer.  Sprinkle  the  seed  with  clay  powder  while  spraying  water  mist  onto  the
mixture  with  an  atomizer  and  moving  the  basket  in  a swirling  motion.  The  seeds  will
become coated with clay and grow larger in size, giving small pellets a quarter- to a half inch in size. When a large quantity of pellets is to be prepared, one alternative is to do
this with a concrete mixer.
Topsoil-containing clay may also be used to form the pellets, but if the pellets crumble
too early in spring, the seed will be devoured by rodents and other pests. For those who
prefer a scientific method of convenience, the seeds may be coated with a synthetic resin
such as Styrofoam containing the necessary pesticides.
Single  cropping:  Even  when  rice  is  single-cropped  rather  than  grown  in  alternation
with  barley,  clover  seed  may  be  sown  in  the  fall,  and  the  following  spring  rice  seed
scattered over the clover and the field flooded to  favor the rice. Another possibility is to
sow  Chinese  milk  vetch  and  barley  early,  then  cut  these  early  in  spring  (February  or
March) for livestock feed. The barley will recover enough to yield 11 to 13 bushels per
quarter-acre later. When single-cropping rice on a  dry field, bur clover or Chinese milk
vetch may be used.
Shallow-tillage direct-seeding:  Twenty-two pounds each of barley and rice seed may
be sown together in the autumn and the field raked.An alternative is to lightly till the
field with a plow to a depth of about two inches, then sow clover and barley seed and
cover the seed with rice straw. Or, after shallow tilling, a planter may be used to plant
seed individually or drill. Good results can be had in water-leak paddy fields by using this
method  first,  then  later  switching  to  no-tillage  cultivation.  Success  in  natural  farming depends on how well shallow, evenly sown seeds germinate.
4. Fertilization:Following the rice harvest, spread 650-900 pounds of chicken manure
per quarter-acre either before or after returning the rice straw to the fields. An additional 200 pounds may be added in late February as a top dressing during the barley heading stage.
After  the  barley  harvest,  manure  again  for  the  rice.  When  high  yields  have  been
collected, spread 450-900 pounds of dried chicken manure before or after returning the
barley straw to the field. Fresh manure should not  be used here as this can harm the rice
seedlings.  A  later  application  is  generally  not  needed,  but  a  small  amount  (200-450
pounds)  of  chicken  manure  may  be  added  early  during the  heading  stage,  preferably
before  the  24th  day  of  heading.  This  may  of  course  be  decomposed  human  or  animal
wastes, or even wood ashes.
However,  from  the  standpoint  of  natural  farming,  it would  be  preferable  and  much
easier to release ten ducklings per quarter-acre onto the field when the rice seedlings have
become established. Not only do the ducks weed and  pick off insects, they turn the soil.
But they do have to be protected from stray dogs and hawks. Another good idea might be
to release young carp. By making full, three-dimensional use of the field in this way, one
can at the same time produce good protein foods.
5.  Straw  mulching: Natural  rice  farming  began  with  straw.  This  promotes  seed
germination, holds back winter weeds, and enriches  the soil. All of the straw and chaff
obtained when harvesting and threshing the rice should be scattered uncut over the entire
surface of the field.
Barley straw too should be returned to the field after the harvest, but this must be done
as soon as possible following threshing because once dried barley straw is wet by rain, it
becomes  more  than  five  times  as  heavy  and  very  difficult  to  transport,  in  addition  to
which the potassium leaches out of the straw. Often too, attempting to do a careful job
can  be  self-defeating,  for  with  all  the  trouble  it  takes  to  get  out  the  cutters  and  other motorized equipment, one is often tempted to just leave the straw lying about.
No  matter  how  conscientious  a  farmer  is  in  his  work,  each  operation  is  part  of  a
carefully ordered system. A sudden change in weather or even a small disruption in the
work schedule can upset the timing of an operation enough to lead to a major failure. If
the rice straw is scattered over the field immediately after threshing, the job will be done in just two or three hours. It does not really matter how quick or carelessly it is done.
Although  it  may  appear  to  be  crude  and  backward,  spreading  fresh  straw  on  a  rice
field  is  really  quite  a  bold  and  revolutionary  step in  rice  farming.  The  agricultural technician  has  always  regarded  rice  straw  as  nothing  but  a  source  of  rice  diseases  and pests, so the common and accepted practice has been to apply the straw only when fully decomposed as prepared compost. That rice straw must be burned as a primary source of rice blast disease is virtually gospel in some circles, as illustrated by the burning of rice straw on an immense scale in Hokkaido under the urging of plant pathologists.
I deliberately called composting unnecessary and proposed that all the fresh rice straw
be  scattered  over  the  field  during  barley  cultivation  and  all  the  barley  straw  be  spread over the field during rice cultivation. But this is-only possible with strong, healthy grain.
How  very  unfortunate  it  is  then  that,  overlooking  the  importance  of  healthy  rice  and barley production, researchers have only just begun to encourage the use of fresh straw
by chopping part of the straw with a cutter and plowing it under.
Straw produced on Japanese rice fields is of great  importance as a source of organic
fertilizer and for protecting the fields and enriching the soil. Yet today this practice of
burning such invaluable  material is spreading throughout Japan. At harvest time in the
early summer, no one stops to wonder about the smoke hanging over the plain from the
burning barley straw in the fields.
A number of years ago, a group of farming specialists and members of the agricultural
administration, most of whom had no first-hand idea of how much hard work preparing compost  is,  did  start  a  campaign  urging  farmers  to  enrich  the  soil  by  composting  with straw. But today, with the large machinery available, all the harvesting gets done at once.
After the grain has been taken, the problem for many seems to be how to get rid of all the
straw;  some  just  let  it  lay  and  others  burn  it.  Are there  no  farmers,  scientists,  or
agricultural administrators out there who see that whether or not we spread straw over our
fields may decide the fate of our national lands?
It is from just such a small matter that shall emerge the future of Japanese agriculture.
6. Harvesting and threshing barley:Once the barley has been seeded and the mulch
of rice straw applied, there is nothing left to do  until the barley is ready for harvesting.
This  means  one  person  can  handle  whatever  needs  to  be  done  on  a  quarter-acre  until harvest time. Even including harvesting and threshing operations, five people are plenty for  growing  barley.  The  barley  can  be  cut  with  a  sickle  even  when  broadcast  over  the entire field, A quarter-acre will yield over 22 bushels (1,300 pounds) of grain.
7.  Irrigation  and  drainage: The  success  of  rice  and  barley  cropping  depends  on
germination and weed control, the first ten to twenty days being especially critical.
Water management, which consists of irrigation and  drainage, is the most important
part of crop management in rice cultivation. Irrigation management throughout the rice
growing  season  can  be  particularly  perplexing  for  the  novice  farmer,  and  so  merits special attention here.
Farmers making use of these methods of direct-seeding rice-barley cultivation in areas
where most farmers transplant their rice will be seeding and irrigating at times different
from other local farmers. This can lead to disputes, especially as the irrigation canals are
communally  controlled;  one  cannot  simply  draw  large amounts  of  water  from  a  long
canal  whenever  one  pleases.  Also,  if  you  irrigate  when  the  neighboring  fields  are  dry,
water  leakage  into  other  fields  can  greatly  inconvenience  the  farmer  next  door.  If
something like this happens, immediately plaster your levees with mud. With intermittent
irrigation, fissures tend to develop in the levee, causing leakage.
Then  too  there  is  always  the  problem  of  moles.  Most people  might  dismiss  a  mole
tunnel as nothing much to worry about, but a mole running along the length of a freshly
plastered levee can in one night dig a tunnel 40-50feet long, ruining a good levee. By
burrowing straight through a levee, a mole weakens  it so that water even starts leaking
out  of  mole  cricket  and  earthworm  holes;  before  you know  it,  these  can  develop  into
sizable holes. Finding holes in levees may appear to be easy, but unless the grass along
the  top  and  sides  of  the  levee  is  always  neatly  cropped  (it  should  be  cut  at  least  three times a year), there is no way of knowing where the entrance or exit is. More often than
not, one notices a hole for the first time only after it has enlarged considerably.
A hole may appear small from the outside, but inside it widens into larger pockets that
just cannot be stopped up with a handful or two of  mud. If dirt has flowed out of a hole
for an entire night, you will have to carry in maybe 50 to 100 pounds of earth to repair it.
Use stiff earth to plug up the hole; if it is plugged with soft earth, this might work free
overnight. Avoid makeshift repairs as these only lead to eventual crumbling of the levee,
which will spell real trouble.
Do  not  leave  grass  cuttings  and  bundles  of  straw  on a  levee  because  these  draw
earthworms which moles come to feed on, If moles are present, they can be gotten rid of
using a number of devices. For example, these can be caught merely by placing a simple
bamboo tube capped at both ends with valves at a hard point in the mole tunnel. There is
a trick to catching moles, but once you have gotten the knack of it and are finally able to
keep your entire field filled with water by plugging all the holes, then you too will be a
full-fledged rice farmer.
After  having  experienced  the  tribulations  of  water  management,  you  will  be  better
prepared to fully appreciate the hardships and rewards of natural farming.
Lately, highland paddy rice farmers have been constructing their levees of concrete or
covering  the  footpaths  with  vinyl  sheeting.  This  appears  to  be  an  easy  way  of  holding
water, but the earth at the base of the concrete or below the sheeting are ideal places for
moles  to  live.  Give  them  two  or  three  years  and  repairs  on  these  might  be  a  lot  more difficult than on normal earthen levees. In the long run, such methods do not make things easier for the farmer.
All one needs to do, then, is to rebuild the levees each year. To build a levee that does
not leak, first carefully cut the grass on the old  levee with a sickle, then break down the
levee  with  an  open-ended  hoe.  Next,  dig  up  the  soil at  the  bottom  of  the  levee  and,
drawing  some  water  alongside,  break  up  and  knead  the  earth  with  a  three-pronged
cultivator. Now build up the levee and, after letting this stand for awhile, plaster the top
and sides with earth.
All  the  traditional  farming  tools  used  from  ancient times  in  Japan  come  into  play
during the building of an earthen levee. Observing  the processes by which these simple
yet refined implements efficiently modify the arrangement of soil particles in the paddy
field, I get a keen sense of just how perfectly designed and efficient they are. Even in soil
engineering terms, these tools and their use represent a very sophisticated technology.
Such a technology is clearly superior to poured concrete and vinyl sheeting. Erecting a
well-built levee in a paddy field is akin to making work of art. Modern man sees the
mud-coated  farmer  plastering  his  levees  and  transplanting  his  rice  as  a  throwback  to  a crude,  per-scientific  age.  The  mission  of  natural  farming  is  to  peel  away  this  narrow vision and show such labor in its true light as artistic and religious work.
8. Disease and pest “control”:After thirty to forty years of farming without pesticides,
I have come to believe that, while people need doctors because they are careless about
their health, crops do not indulge in self-deception. Provided the farmer is sincere in his efforts to grow healthy crops, there will never be any need for pesticides.
To the scientific skeptics, however, the matter is not so easily settled. Yet my years of
experience have shown me the answers to their doubts and pointed questions—questions
such as: Wasn’t that just a chance success? Why, you had no large outbreak of disease or
pest damage, did you? Aren’t you just benefiting from the effects of pesticides sprayed
by your neighbors? Aren’t you just evading the problem? So where do the pests go, then?
There  have  been  massive  local  outbreaks  of  leaf hoppers  on  two  or  three  occasions
over the past thirty years, but as the record of the Kochi Prefecture Agricultural Testing
Station  bear  out,  no  ill  came  of  a  lack  of  control  measures.  No  doubt,  if  such  surveys
were  conducted  on  a  regular  basis  year  in  and  year  out,  people  would  be  more  fully
convinced.  But  of  even  greater  importance,  certainly,  is  a  sense  of  the  complexity  and
drama which fills the world of small creatures that inhabit a rice field.
I  have  already  described  just  how  profound  are  the  effects  of  pesticides  on  a  living
field. My field is populated with large Asiatic locusts and tree frogs; only over this field
will you find hovering clouds of dragonflies and see flocks of ground sparrows and even
swallows flying about.
Before  we  debate  the  need  to  spray  pesticides,  we  should  understand  the  dangers posed by man’s tampering with the world of living things. Most damage caused by plant diseases and pests can be resolved by ecological measures.
High-Yield Cultivation of Rice and Barley
Many people assume that yields from natural farming are inferior to those of scientific
farming, but in fact the very reverse is true.
Analytic and scientific reasoning leads us to believe that the way to increase yields is
to break up rice production into a number of constituent elements, conduct research on
how to make improvements in each, then reassemble the elements once they have been
improved.  But  this  is  just  like  carrying  a  single  lantern  to  guide  one’s  way  through  a
pitch-dark  night.  Unlike  one  who  makes  his  way  without  a  lantern  toward  the  single,
faraway light of an ideal, this is blind, directionless progress. The scientific research from which technology unfolds lacks a unity of purpose;  its aims are disparate. This is why
techniques  developed  through  research  on  rice  that  yields  15  bushels  per  quarter-acre
cannot  be  applied  to  rice  that  gives  30  or  40  bushels.  The  quickest  and  surest  way  to
break through the 20-bushel barrier is to take a look at 30* or 40-bushel rice and, setting
a clear goal, concentrate all one’s technical resources in that direction.
Once the decision has been made to go with rice plants having a given panicle-to-stalk
length ratio such as 8:1, 6:1, or 3:1, say, this clarifies the goal for farmers producing the
rice, enabling the shortest possible path to be taken towards achieving high yields.
The Ideal Form of a Rice Plant:  Aware of the inherent problems with the process of
breaking down and analyzing a rice plant in the laboratory and reaching conclusions from
these results, I chose to abandon existing notions  and look instead at the rice plant from
afar. My method of growing rice may appear reckless and absurd, but all along I have
sought the true form of rice. I have searched for the form of natural rice and asked what
healthy rice is. Later, holding on to that image, I have tried to determine the limits of the
high yields that man strives after.
When I grew rice, barley, and clover together, I found that rice ripening over a thick
cover  of  clover  is  short-stalked,  robust  right  down to  the  bottom  leaf,  and  bears  fine golden heads of grain. After observing this, I tried seeding the rice in the fall and winter,
and  learned  that  even  rice  grown  under  terrible  conditions  on  arid,  depleted  soil  gives surprisingly high yields.
This  experience  convinced  me  of  the  possibilities  of  growing  high-yielding  rice  on
continuously  untilled  fields,  so  I  began  experimenting  to  learn  the  type  of  field  and
manner in which rice having an ideal form will grow. Eventually I found what I thought
to be the ideal form of high-yielding rice. Tables  4.5 through 4.7 give the dimensions of
ideal rice. Each value indicated is the average for three plants.
Analysis of the Ideal Form:  What follows is a description of the major characteristics
of rice plants with an ideal form.
1.  Short-stalked  dwarf  rice  of  robust  appearance;  leaves  are  short,  wide,  and  erect.
While lyo-Riki rice is erect and short-stalked to begin with, this variety has an extremely
short  stalk,  the  stalk  height  being  just  21  inches. Seen  growing  in  the  paddy  field,  its
small size makes it appear inferior to rice plants  in surrounding fields, although it does
have about 15 to 22 tillers per plant. At maturity,the stalks are heavy with bright golden
heads of grain.
2. The weight of the unhulled grain is 150 to 167 percent that of the straw. In ordinary
rice, this is less than 70 percent, and generally 40 to 50 percent. When a dried stalk of
rice is balanced on a fingertip, the point of equilibrium is close to the neck of the panicle.
In ordinary rice, this is located near the center of the stalk.
3. The length of the first inter-node at the top of the plant is more than fifty percent of
the  stalk  length,  and  when  the  plant  is  bent  downward  at  the  first  node,  the  panicle
extends below the base of the stalk. The longer the length of this first inter-node and the
larger the ratio of this length to the overall stalk length, the better.
4. An important characteristic is that the leaf blade on the second leaf down is longer
than that of any other leaf. Thereafter, the leaf blade becomes shorter as one moves down
the stalk.
5. The leaf sheaths are relatively long, the longest sheath being that on the first leaf.
The  sheaths  become  progressively  shorter  on  moving  down  the  plant.  The  total  leaf
length, representing the sum of the leaf blade length and sheath length, is longest for the
first  and  second  leaves,  and  decreases  downward.  In rice  that  is  not  high-yielding,  the lower leaves are longer, the longest being the fourth leaf.
6. Only the top four nodes grow, and the fourth is at ground level or lower. When the
rice is cut, the straw includes no more than two or three nodes. Normal rice has five or six
nodes, so the difference is startling. When the rice is harvested, four or five leaves remain
alive, but seeing as the top three fully formed leaves alone are enough to yield more than
100 full grains per head, the surface area required for starch synthesis is less than would
otherwise  be  expected.  I  would  put  the  amount  of  leaf  surface  needed  to  produce  one grain of rice at perhaps-0.1 square inch, no more.
7.  A  good  plant  shape  naturally  results  in  good  filling  of  the  grain.  Weight  per
thousand grains of unpolished rice is 23 grams for  small-grained rice, and 24.5-25 grams
for normal-grained rice.
8.  Even  at  a  density  of  500  stalks  to  the  square  yard,  hardy  upright  dwarf  rice  will
show no decline in the number of grains per head or percent of ripened grains.
The Ideal Shape of Rice:
1.  Both the plant height and length of the leaf blades are much smaller than in ordinary
varieties. This is no accident. I had for some time thought large plants unnecessary in rice
production, and so endeavored to suppress rather than promote vegetative growth of the
plant. I did not irrigate during the first half of  the growing season and by applying fresh
straw to the field checked plant response to a basal application of fertilizer. As it turned
out, I was correct.  I have come to believe that inter nodal growth between the fifth and
sixth nodes should be suppressed. In fact, I even believe that rice can do fine with just
three above round nodes.
2. In ideally shaped rice, the inter node lengths each decrease by half from the top to
the bottom of the plant. Not only does this indicate steady, orderly growth of the rice, it
also  means  that  inter nodal  growth  occurs  only  starting  at  the  young  panicle  formation
stage.
3. The long second leaf and the decreasing leaf length as one moves down the stalk is
the exact reverse of what is generally thought to be the correct shape of rice, but I believe
that this inverted triangular shape gives a rice plant that does well in the fall.
When all the leaves are erect, large top leaves give a better yield, but if the leaves are
unhealthy and droop, highest yields are obtained with small, erect top leaves that do not
shield the lower leaves from the sun. Thus, if plants with large upper leaves are grown
but  these  leaves  droop  and  yields  decline  as  a  result,  this  is  because  the  rice  plant  is
unhealthy and the lower leaves are too large.
4. The leaf sheaths are longer than the leaf blades and enclose the stem of the plant.
The long leaf sheath and blade on the flag leaf ensure the best possible nutritional state
during the young panicle formation stage.
5. After the seedling stage, the ideal rice plant remains small and  yellow during the
vegetative stage, but the leaves gradually turn greener during the reproductive stage. As
measurements of the inter node lengths show, changes in the nutritional state are steady
and  entirely  unremarkable;  fertilizer  response  increases  with  growth  of  the  plant  but never inordinately so.
Ideally then, the heads of rice are large and the plant short, having just three or four
nodes above the ground. The leaves get longer in ascending order toward the top and the
inter node length between the fourth and fifth nodes at the bottom is very short. Instead of
a feminine form with a high head-to-body ratio of six or even eight to one, this plant has
a more sturdy, masculine, short-stalked, panicle weight type shape.
Of course, depending on the variety of rice, an ideal plant may have a long stalk and
be  of  the  panicle  number  type.  Rather  than  deciding that  some  characteristic  is
undesirable,  one  should  avoid  producing  weak,  overgrown  heads  and  strive  always  to
practice methods of cultivation that suppress and condense. Concentrated rice carries a
tremendous  store  of  energy  that  provides  high  yields  because  it  maintains  an  orderly
shape  receptive  to  sunlight,  matures  well,  and  is  resistant  to  disease  and  pest  attack—
even in a very dense stand.
The next problem is how to go about growing an entire field of such rice.
A  Blueprint  for  the  Natural  Cultivation  of  Ideal  Rice:  Although  raising  one  high yielding rice plant with good photosynthetic efficiency is easy, it was no simple matter to
grow full stands of such rice.
Healthy  individual  rice  plants  growing  in  nature  have  plenty  of  space  to  grow.  The
sparse seeding of individual seeds allows the rice  to assume the natural form that suits it
best and to make full use of its powers. In addition, rice grown in its natural form puts out leaves  in  a  regular,  phyllotaxic  order.  The  leaves  open  up  and  spread  in  alternation, breaking crosswinds and ensuring the penetration of sunlight throughout the life of the plant, each leaf maintaining a good light-receiving form.
Knowing all this, I anticipated from the start that healthy rice farming would require
that I sow individual seeds sparsely. But because I was initially plagued with problems of poor germination and weed control when I began direct-seeded no-tillage cultivation, to
ensure a stable crop I had no choice but to plant and seed densely.
However,  dense  planting  and  seeding  tended  to  result  in  thick  growth.  The  poor
environment of individual plants made attempts to suppress growth ineffective, and the
situation  was  doubly  aggravated  in  wet  years,  when  the  rice  would  shoot  up  into  tall, weak plants that often lodged, ruining the crop. To-secure stable harvests of at least 22
bushels  per  quarter-acre,  I  resumed  sparse  seeding. Fortunately,  thanks  to  gradual
improvements  in  the  weed  control  problem  and  soil  fertility,  conditions  fell  into  place
that made it possible for me to seed sparsely. I tried broadcasting—a form of individual
seeding, and also seeding at uniform intervals of from 6 to 12 inches. My results appear
in Tables 4.9 and 4.10.
Although I did run into a number of crop management-problems, I found that sparse
seeding gives healthy, natural rice plants that grow well and provide the high yields that I
had expected.  In this way,  I was able to obtain  yields of over one ton per quarter-acre
with naturally grown rice. I should add that there is nothing absolute or sacred about the
seeding  rate  and  interval.  These  must  be  adjusted  in  accordance  with  other  growing
conditions.
The Meaning and Limits of High Yields:  In natural farming, high yields rely on the
absorption and storage of as much of nature’s energy as possible by the crop. For this, the
crop  must  make  the  fullest  possible  use  of  its  inherent  powers.  The  proper  role  of  the
natural  farmer  is  not  to  utilize  the  animals  and  plants  of  nature  so  much  as  to  help
invigorate the ecosystem. Because crops absorb energy from the earth and receive light
and heat from the sun, and because they use these to synthesize energy which they store
internally, there are limits to the help man can provide. All he can do really is keep watch
over the earth.
Rather than plowing the fields and growing crops, man would be better occupied in
protecting the vitality of all the organisms inhabiting the earth and in guarding the natural order. Yet, it is always man who destroys the ecosystem and disrupts the natural cycles and flow of life. Call him the steward and keeper of the earth if you will, but his most
important mission is not to protect the earth so much as to keep a close control over those
who would ravage and waste it.
The guardian of a watermelon patch does not watch the water melons, he looks out for
watermelon  thieves.  Nature  protects  itself  and  sees to  the  boundless  growth  of  the
organisms  that  inhabit  it.  Man  is  one  of  these;  he  is  neither  in  control  nor  a  mere
onlooker.  He  must  hold  a  vision  that  is  in  unity  with  nature.  This  is  why,  in  natural
farming,  the  farmer  must  strictly  guard  his  proper  place  in  nature  and  never  sacrifice
something else to human desire.
Scientific farming consists of producing specific crops selected from the natural world
to  suit  our  human  cravings.  This  interferes  with  the  well-being  of  fellow  organisms,
setting the stage for later reprisal.
The scientist planning to cultivate high-yielding rice on a field sees the weeds growing
at  his  feet  only  as  pests  that  will  rob  sunlight  and  nutrients  from  the  rice  plants.  He believes,  understandably,  that  he  will  be  able  to  achieve  the  highest  possible  yields  by totally eradicating such “intruders” and ensuring that the rice plants monopolize the sun’s
incident  rays.  But  removing  weeds  with  herbicides  is  all  it  takes  to  upset  the  delicate balance  of  nature.  The  herbicides  destroy  the  ecosystem  of  the  insects  and
microorganisms dependent on the weeds, abruptly changing the current of life in the soil
bio-community. An imbalance in this living soil inevitably throws all the other organisms
there  off  balance  as  well.  Unbalanced  rice  is  diseased  rice,  and  therefore  highly
susceptible to concentrated attack by disease and insect pests.
Those who believe that the monopoly by rice, in the absence of weeds, of the sun’s
rays will provide the highest possible yields are sadly mistaken. Unable to absorb the full
blessings of the sun, diseased rice wastes it instead. With its limited perception, scientific
farming cannot make the same full use of solar energy as natural farming, which views
nature holistically.
Before pulling the weeds growing at the base of the rice plants, natural farming asks
why they are there. Are these grasses the by-product of human action or did they arise
spontaneously and naturally? If the latter, then they are without doubt of value and are
left to grow. The natural farmer takes care to allow natural plants that protect the natural
soil to carry out their mission.
Green manure thriving at the foot of the rice plants and, later, algae growing on the
flooded field are thought to detract from yields because they directly and indirectly shield
the sun, reducing the amount of light received by the rice plants. But we reach a different
conclusion if we see this as a nearly natural state. The total energy absorbed by the rice,
green manure, algae, and earth is greater than the energy stored from the sun’s rays by the
rice  plants.  The  true  value  of  energy  cannot  be  determined  merely  by  counting  the number of calories. The quality of the energy produced within the plant by conversion
from  absorbed  energy  must  also  be  taken  into  account.  There  is  a  world  of  difference
between whether we look only at the amount of energy received by the rice plant or take
a three-dimensional view of its quantitative and qualitative utilization of energy from the
sun’s rays.
Energy  from  the  sun  is  absorbed  by  the  green  manure plants.  When  the  field  is
flooded, these wither and die, passing on their nitrogen to algae, which in turn become a
source  of  phosphate.  Using  this  phosphate  as  a  nutrient  source,  microbes  in  the  so\\
ftoutish and die, leaving nutrients that are absorbed by the roots of the rice plants. If man
were  able  to  comprehend  all  these  cycles  of  energy  and  elements  at  once,  this  would
become a science greater than any other. How foolish to focus only on solar energy apart
from the rest of nature and think that merely by examining the amount of starch synthesis
in the leaves of rice plants, one can gauge utilization of the sun’s energy.
People must begin by understanding the futility of  knowing bits and pieces of nature,
by realizing that a general understanding of the whole cannot be acquired through value
judgments  of  isolated  events  and  objects.  They  must see  that  the  moment  the  scientist
endeavors to attain high yields by using the energy of the wind or sun, he loses a holistic
view of wind power and sunlight, and energy efficiency declines. It is a mistake to think
of the wind and light as matter.
I too raise rice and analyze its growth, but I never seek to attain high yields through
human knowledge. No, I analyze the situation we have today, where man has upset the
natural order of things and must work twice as hard to prevent harvest losses, and I try to
encourage people to see the error of their ways.
True high yields come about through the spirited activity of nature, never apart from
nature. Attempts to increase production in an unnatural environment invariably result in a
deformed and inferior crop. Yields and quality only appear to be high. This is because
man can add or contribute nothing to nature.
Since the amount of solar energy that can be received by a field of rice is finite, there
is a limit to the yields attainable through natural farming. Many believe that because man
has  the  ability  to  conceive  and  develop  alternative sources  of  energy,  there  are  no
absolute  upper  limits  to  scientific  development  and increases  in  harvest.  But  nothing
could be further from the truth. The power of the sun is vast and unlimited when seen
from the standpoint of Mu, but when made the object of man’s wants and cravings, even
the  sun’s  power  becomes  small  and  finite.  Science  cannot  produce  yields  that  exceed
those possible through nature. Effort rooted in human knowledge is without avail. The
only course that remains is to relinquish deeds and plans.
The  question  of  whether  the  method  of  cultivation  I propose,  a  direct-seeding  no tillage rice/barley succession in a ground cover of green manure, is a true prototype of
nature must be judged  according to whether it is a  method less method that approaches
closer to nature.
I believe that, since rice is best suited to Japanese soil as a first crop, and barley or
wheat as a second crop, a successive cropping of rice and barley or wheat that provides a
large total caloric output makes good use of Japanese land by utilizing the full powers of
nature.  The  reason  I  concentrated  on  a  method  of  biennial  cultivation  that  begins  by sowing rice seed in the autumn and devotes a full year to the growth of rice was because I
thought that this would enable the rice to absorb the most natural energy throughout the
year.
The cover of green manure makes three-dimensional use of space in the field, while
straw mulching and the breakdown of materials in the soil encourage revitalization of the natural ecosystem. These can be thought of as manifestations of an effort to approach the
ultimate goal of a “do-nothing” nature. One look at the diagram in Fig. A at the beginning
of  this  book,  depicting  the  centripetal  convergence of  my  research  on  rice  cultivation, will immediately make clear what I have aimed at from the very beginning and where my efforts have brought me.
From a holistic standpoint, the farming method I propose surely appears at least one step
closer to nature. But to the scientist, this method is just one among many different ways
of farming.