Latest Masanobu Fukuoka Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• We receive our nourishment from the Mother Earth. So we should put our hands together in an attitude of prayer and say "please" and "thank you" when dealing with nature.

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Mother, Prayer, Attitude

• People should relate to nature as birds do. Birds don't run around carefully preparing fields, planting seeds, and harvesting food. They don't create anything . . . they just receive what is there for them with a humble and grateful heart.

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Running, Grateful, Heart

• The person who can most easily take up natural agriculture is the one who doesn't have any of the common adult obstructing blocks of desire, philosophy, or religion . . . the person who has the mind and heart of a child. One must simply know nature . . . real nature, not the one we think we know!

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Children, Block, Philosophy

• A farmer does not grow something in the sense that he or she creates it. That human is only a small part of the whole process by which nature expresses its being.

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Doe, Process, Farmers

• Although natural farming - since it can teach people to cultivate a deep understanding of nature - may lead to spiritual insight, it's not strictly a spiritual practice.

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Spiritual, Practice, Deep Understanding

• Natural farming is just farming, nothing more. You don't have to be a spiritually oriented person to practice my methods.

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Practice, Farming, Natural

• One of the most important discoveries I made in those early years was that to succeed at natural farming, you have to get rid of your expectations. Such "products" of the mind are often incorrect or unrealistic . . . and can lead you to think you've made a mistake if they're not met.

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Mistake, Thinking, Discovery

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

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Mistake, Thinking, Doe

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

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Tree, Green, Way

• Since I turned the fields back to their natural state, I can't say I've had any really difficult problems with insects or disease.

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Disease, Fields, Problem

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

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  War, Caring, Hands

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

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Thinking, Healthy, Disease

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

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Fall, Fields, Week

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

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Perfect, Balance, Principles

• Straw mulch, a ground cover of white clover interplanted with the crops, and temporary flooding all provide effective weed control in my fields.

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Weed, White, Fields

  Masanobu Fukuoka (2010). “The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming”, p.34, New York Review of Books

• Weeds play an important part in building soil fertility and in balancing the biological community . . .

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Weed, Play, Community

• Left alone, the earth maintains its own fertility, in accordance with the orderly cycle of plant and animal life.

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Animal, Earth, Fertility

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

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Real, Needs, Done

  "Masanobu Fukuoka: Japanese Organic Farmer". Interview with Larry Korn, www.motherearthnews.com. July/August 1982.

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

  Masanobu Fukuoka

  Mistake, Doe, Fields