[.uk] One-straw Revolution (ISBN 8185569312)

wonderful:
I read this book years ago when it was first published and it has been a magor influence on me and my gardens for all these years. I've followed Fukoka's ideas as much as closely I can living in a city and have had wonderful results. He is right, let nature do the work. My garden is the most beautiful in the neighborhood, and without any pesticides, fertilizers, tilling, or backstrain. Buy this book, Gaia's Garden, and Forest Gardening. They all follow the naturalistic, symbiotic, permaculture mode that mother nature has been evolving for a billion years - just plug into the natural order and start growing!

Let The Better Nature Win:
Fabulous book. Inspiring look at how not to mess around with Mother Nature. Nature is not the enemy we have been led to believe! I love this book, and it was one of the first to make an indelible impression about changing one's philosophy of how to possibly go about organic farming (I was an organic farmer later on). Poses searching questions (and one man's answers) that every gardener and farmer should look for the answers to, regarding how much we need to interfere with natural processes to produce food. Also a thoughtful look at balancing nutritional needs with what is seasonally available. Vital reading for anyone interested in permaculture, sustainable agriculture, or just a soul-lifting antidote to modern, corporate food production.

The kind of book all should be exposed to...:
Though I had heard a little bit about Fukuoka and his practice, I was not prepared in the least for the way that this book would touch me. It was like a ray of light piercing through the murky cloudiness that was my mind; all the more remarkable because I stumbled on it by chance at the public library while glancing through the gardening books. He does an excellent job of demonstrating how much extra work we have all created for ourselves, how our scientific solutions all require further solutions, and that it is an endless cycle as long as we are straying from nature and its example. This book managed to eloquently lay out a great many ideas that had been lying dormant in my head: the overemphasis on specialization vs. generalism in our society, the break between modern urbanized lives and natural agrarian lives, the definition of 'enough' and how desire leads us ever farther away from that baseline. Fukuoka discusses all these topics and more--and in a style that is far more effective than anything I can write to explain it. It is philosophy, agricultural method, and cultural criticism wrapped up into an effective unity. A shame that it appears to be out of print right now.

It's the way all right:
Ladies and Gentlemen, please get on board, the Fukuoka earth ship is departing for Earth. All I can say is to get involved with the growing community of Fukuoka farmers around the world. Please come and visit us at fukuokafarmingol.net if you have any inclination towards ecological farming and leaving behind the fear of growing your own food because you are afraid the results will not be what you want or because you are afraid to damage the soil. Masanobu points the way to farming without destruction.

Phenomenology or Farming?:
Some have said that the Fukuokan philosophy is the tap root of what is now more broadly called Permaculture, only Masanobu Fukuoka was a Japanese farmer, working with rice and winter grain in a southern Japanese climate. Both are no-till methods that shun the use of chemicals. However, Fukuoka should be set apart from farming in general and Permaculture in particular, in that The One-Straw Revolution is essentially a profound work of literary philosophy. Indeed, in many cases it reads like a naturalist's bible. Although the book is dressed in the language and anecdotes of a farmer, the message looms much larger. We read of a man who came to terms with the problem of death, and then decided to form a profoundly new (or is it old?) relationship with nature. In essence, the nugget of his wisdom is that, instead of struggling to control and command nature, we must learn to work with and learn from nature. Allow me to share one quote:"To build a fortress is wrong from the start. Even though he gives the excuse that it is for the city's defense, the castle is the outcome of the ruling lord's personality, and exerts a coercive force on the surrounding area. Saying he is afraid of attack and that fortification is for the town's protection, the bully stocks up weapons and puts the key in the door." Now I ask you, does the following paragraph sound like the words of a farmer or a philosopher? From the face of it, one might think Fukuoka is here criticizing the nuclear arms race, but he is actually talking about the warlike mindset of farmers who see leaf-munching pests as evil enemies that must be fortified against, sought out and destroyed. Whether we are talking about bull weevils or communities, though, his advice is sound. We must change our frame of reference and establish a different relationship with the world. Concise and yet elegant, Fukuoka's prose is pregnant with meaning. Altogether, this work provides poetic an intelligent critique of industrial agricultural practices and the linear notions of nature and progress that underlay those practices. In fact, Fukuoka goes as far as to declare that the scientific method itself limits our experience and knowledge of nature. An invaluable, timeless work that will move you, even if you have never picked up a hoe. j.w.k.