Natural farming
Encyclopedia
Natural farming is an ecological farming
approach established by Masanobu Fukuoka
(1913–2008), a Japanese farmer and philosopher who described his agricultural philosophy as in Japanese. It is also referred to as "the Fukuoka Method", "the natural way of farming" or "do-nothing farming". The title refers not to lack of labor, but to the avoidance of manufactured inputs and equipment.
The system exploits the complexity of living organisms that shape each particular ecosystem. Fukuoka saw farming not just as a means of producing food but as an aesthetic or spiritual approach to life, the ultimate goal of which was "the cultivation and perfection of human beings". He suggested that if farmers closely observed local conditions, they could benefit from them. Natural farming is a closed system demanding no outside inputs and mimics nature.
Fukuoka's ideas challenged common agricultural conventions core to modern agro-industries, instead promoting an ethical and environmental approach. Natural farming also differs from conventional organic farming
. which Fukuoka considered to be another modern technique that disturbs the natural ecosystem.
Fukuoka claims that his approach prevents water contamination, biodiversity
loss and soil erosion while still providing ample amounts of food.
Though many of his plant varieties and practices relate specifically to Japan, and even to local conditions in subtropical
western Shikoku
, his philosophy and the governing principles of his farming systems have applied around the world. They are practised in different places and climates from Africa to the temperate
northern hemisphere. In India
, natural farming is often referred to as "Rishi Kheti".
Principally, natural farming minimises human labour or disturbance and adopts, as closely as practical, nature's reproduction of foods such as rice
, barley
, daikon
or citrus
in biodiverse
agricultural ecosystem
s. Without plowing, seeds
germinate
well on the surface if natural conditions for each site meet the needs of the seeds planted there. Fukuoka used the presence of spiders in his fields as a key performance indicator of sustainability
.
In the system, the ground always remains covered by weed
s, white clover
, alfalfa
, herbaceous
legumes, and sometimes additional deliberately sown herbaceous plants. Ground cover is seen as part of the ecosystem that includes grain or vegetable crops and orchards. Chickens run free throughout the orchards and ducks and carp
frequent rice fields.
Periodically some ground layer plants including weeds may be cut low and left on the surface, returning their nutrients to the soil, while shading and suppressing weed growth. This also facilitates the sowing of more seeds in the same area.
In the summer-rice and winter-barley grain crops, ground cover naturally provides nitrogen fixation
from the atmosphere. In addition, straw
from the previous crop covers the topsoil
as mulch
. Each grain crop is sown before the previous one is harvested by broadcasting
the seed among the standing crop. The result is a denser crop of smaller but highly productive and stronger plants.
Fukuoka's practice and philosophy emphasises small scale operation and challenged the need for mechanised farming techniques for high productivity, efficiency and economies of scale. While his family's farm was larger than the Japanese average, he used one field of grain crops as a small-scale example of his system.
, conceived of a "no fertilizer" farming system in the 1930s which predated Fukuoka. Okada used the same Japanese characters, which are generally translated in English as "nature farming". Agriculture researcher Hu-lian Xu claiming that "nature farming" is the correct literal translation of the Japanese term.
Ecological farming
Ecological farming is recognised as the high-end objective among the proponents of sustainable agriculture. The goal of ecological farming is not only sustainable food production, but is to optimise the provision of ecosystem services, both in the design of the farm and by significant reduction of...
approach established by Masanobu Fukuoka
Masanobu Fukuoka
was a Japanese farmer and philosopher celebrated for his natural farming and re-vegetation of desertified lands. He was a proponent of no-till, no-herbicide grain cultivation farming methods traditional to many indigenous cultures, from which he created a particular method of farming, commonly...
(1913–2008), a Japanese farmer and philosopher who described his agricultural philosophy as in Japanese. It is also referred to as "the Fukuoka Method", "the natural way of farming" or "do-nothing farming". The title refers not to lack of labor, but to the avoidance of manufactured inputs and equipment.
The system exploits the complexity of living organisms that shape each particular ecosystem. Fukuoka saw farming not just as a means of producing food but as an aesthetic or spiritual approach to life, the ultimate goal of which was "the cultivation and perfection of human beings". He suggested that if farmers closely observed local conditions, they could benefit from them. Natural farming is a closed system demanding no outside inputs and mimics nature.
Fukuoka's ideas challenged common agricultural conventions core to modern agro-industries, instead promoting an ethical and environmental approach. Natural farming also differs from conventional organic farming
Organic farming
Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...
. which Fukuoka considered to be another modern technique that disturbs the natural ecosystem.
Fukuoka claims that his approach prevents water contamination, biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
loss and soil erosion while still providing ample amounts of food.
Principles
The five principles of natural farming are that:- avoid soil tillingTillageTillage is the agricultural preparation of the soil by mechanical agitation of various types, such as digging, stirring, and overturning. Examples of human-powered tilling methods using hand tools include shovelling, picking, mattock work, hoeing, and raking...
and the use of powered machines - avoid prepared fertilizerFertilizerFertilizer is any organic or inorganic material of natural or synthetic origin that is added to a soil to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants. A recent assessment found that about 40 to 60% of crop yields are attributable to commercial fertilizer use...
s, and of preparing compostCompostCompost is organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer and soil amendment. Compost is a key ingredient in organic farming. At its most essential, the process of composting requires simply piling up waste outdoors and waiting for the materials to break down from anywhere... - practice minimal weed suppression with minimal disturbance
- avoid pesticidePesticidePesticides are substances or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest.A pesticide may be a chemical unicycle, biological agent , antimicrobial, disinfectant or device used against any pest...
s and herbicideHerbicideHerbicides, also commonly known as weedkillers, are pesticides used to kill unwanted plants. Selective herbicides kill specific targets while leaving the desired crop relatively unharmed. Some of these act by interfering with the growth of the weed and are often synthetic "imitations" of plant...
s - avoid pruning of fruit trees
Though many of his plant varieties and practices relate specifically to Japan, and even to local conditions in subtropical
Humid subtropical climate
A humid subtropical climate is a climate zone characterized by hot, humid summers and mild to cool winters...
western Shikoku
Shikoku
is the smallest and least populous of the four main islands of Japan, located south of Honshū and east of the island of Kyūshū. Its ancient names include Iyo-no-futana-shima , Iyo-shima , and Futana-shima...
, his philosophy and the governing principles of his farming systems have applied around the world. They are practised in different places and climates from Africa to the temperate
Temperate
In geography, temperate or tepid latitudes of the globe lie between the tropics and the polar circles. The changes in these regions between summer and winter are generally relatively moderate, rather than extreme hot or cold...
northern hemisphere. In India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, natural farming is often referred to as "Rishi Kheti".
Principally, natural farming minimises human labour or disturbance and adopts, as closely as practical, nature's reproduction of foods such as rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
, barley
Barley
Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...
, daikon
Daikon
Daikon , Raphanus sativus var. longipinnatus, also called White Radish, Japanese radish, Oriental radish, Chinese radish, lo bok and Mooli , is a mild flavoured, very large, white East Asian radish...
or citrus
Citrus
Citrus is a common term and genus of flowering plants in the rue family, Rutaceae. Citrus is believed to have originated in the part of Southeast Asia bordered by Northeastern India, Myanmar and the Yunnan province of China...
in biodiverse
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
agricultural ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
s. Without plowing, seeds
SEEDS
SEEDS is a voluntary organisation registered under the Societies Act of India....
germinate
Germination
Germination is the process in which a plant or fungus emerges from a seed or spore, respectively, and begins growth. The most common example of germination is the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm. However the growth of a sporeling from a spore, for example the...
well on the surface if natural conditions for each site meet the needs of the seeds planted there. Fukuoka used the presence of spiders in his fields as a key performance indicator of sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
.
In the system, the ground always remains covered by weed
Weed
A weed in a general sense is a plant that is considered by the user of the term to be a nuisance, and normally applied to unwanted plants in human-controlled settings, especially farm fields and gardens, but also lawns, parks, woods, and other areas. More specifically, the term is often used to...
s, white clover
White clover
Trifolium repens, the white clover , is a species of clover native to Europe, North Africa, and West Asia...
, alfalfa
Alfalfa
Alfalfa is a flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae cultivated as an important forage crop in the US, Canada, Argentina, France, Australia, the Middle East, South Africa, and many other countries. It is known as lucerne in the UK, France, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, and known as...
, herbaceous
Herbaceous
A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...
legumes, and sometimes additional deliberately sown herbaceous plants. Ground cover is seen as part of the ecosystem that includes grain or vegetable crops and orchards. Chickens run free throughout the orchards and ducks and carp
Carp
Carp are various species of oily freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae, a very large group of fish native to Europe and Asia. The cypriniformes are traditionally grouped with the Characiformes, Siluriformes and Gymnotiformes to create the superorder Ostariophysi, since these groups have certain...
frequent rice fields.
Periodically some ground layer plants including weeds may be cut low and left on the surface, returning their nutrients to the soil, while shading and suppressing weed growth. This also facilitates the sowing of more seeds in the same area.
In the summer-rice and winter-barley grain crops, ground cover naturally provides nitrogen fixation
Nitrogen fixation
Nitrogen fixation is the natural process, either biological or abiotic, by which nitrogen in the atmosphere is converted into ammonia . This process is essential for life because fixed nitrogen is required to biosynthesize the basic building blocks of life, e.g., nucleotides for DNA and RNA and...
from the atmosphere. In addition, straw
Straw
Straw is an agricultural by-product, the dry stalks of cereal plants, after the grain and chaff have been removed. Straw makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat. It has many uses, including fuel, livestock bedding and fodder, thatching and...
from the previous crop covers the topsoil
Topsoil
Topsoil is the upper, outermost layer of soil, usually the top to . It has the highest concentration of organic matter and microorganisms and is where most of the Earth's biological soil activity occurs.-Importance:...
as mulch
Mulch
In agriculture and gardening, is a protective cover placed over the soil to retain moisture, reduce erosion, provide nutrients, and suppress weed growth and seed germination. Mulching in gardens and landscaping mimics the leaf cover that is found on forest floors....
. Each grain crop is sown before the previous one is harvested by broadcasting
Broadcast seeding
In agriculture, gardening, and forestry, broadcast seeding is a method of seeding that involves scattering seed, by hand or mechanically, over a relatively large area...
the seed among the standing crop. The result is a denser crop of smaller but highly productive and stronger plants.
Fukuoka's practice and philosophy emphasises small scale operation and challenged the need for mechanised farming techniques for high productivity, efficiency and economies of scale. While his family's farm was larger than the Japanese average, he used one field of grain crops as a small-scale example of his system.
Nature farming
Another Japanese farmer and philosopher Mokichi OkadaMokichi Okada
Mokichi Okada was the founder of the Church of World Messianity, in which he is known by the honorific title Meishū-sama...
, conceived of a "no fertilizer" farming system in the 1930s which predated Fukuoka. Okada used the same Japanese characters, which are generally translated in English as "nature farming". Agriculture researcher Hu-lian Xu claiming that "nature farming" is the correct literal translation of the Japanese term.
See also
- AgrarianismAgrarianismAgrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...
- BiomimicryBiomimicryBiomimicry or biomimetics is the examination of nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take inspiration from in order to solve human problems. The term biomimicry and biomimetics come from the Greek words bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate...
- Brad LancasterBrad LancasterBrad Stewart Lancaster is an expert in the field of rainwater harvesting and water management. He is also a permaculture teacher, designer, consultant and co-founder of non-profit organization....
- Conservation agricultureConservation agricultureConservation agriculture [CA] can be defined by a statement given by the as “a concept for resource-saving agricultural crop production that strives to achieve acceptable profits together with high and sustained production levels while concurrently conserving the environment” .Agriculture...
- EcoagricultureEcoagricultureEcoagriculture describes landscapes that support both agricultural production and biodiversity conservation, working in harmony together to improve the livelihoods of rural communities....
- EthnobotanyEthnobotanyEthnobotany is the scientific study of the relationships that exist between people and plants....
- Forest gardeningForest gardeningForest gardening is a food production and agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables which have yields directly useful to humans...
- Local Exchange Trading SystemsLocal Exchange Trading SystemsLocal exchange trading systems , also known as LETSystems, are locally initiated, democratically organised, not-for-profit community enterprises that provide a community information service and record transactions of members exchanging goods and services by using the currency of locally created...
- MicroponicsMicroponicsMicroponics is the symbiotic integration of fish, plants and micro-livestock in a semi-controlled environment.-History:Microponics is a term created recently by Australian urban farmer, Gary Donaldson to describe his integrated backyard food production concept.While Microponics was also the name...
- No-dig gardeningNo-dig gardeningNo-dig gardening is a non-cultivation method used by some organic gardeners. The origins of no-dig gardening are unclear, and may be based on pre-industrial or nineteenth-century farming techniques. Two pioneers of the method in the twentieth century included F. C...
- No-till farmingNo-till farmingNo-till farming is a way of growing crops from year to year without disturbing the soil through tillage. No-till is an agricultural technique which increases the amount of water and organic matter in the soil and decreases erosion...
- PermaculturePermaculturePermaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture...
- Seed savingSeed savingIn agriculture and gardening, seed saving is the practice of saving seeds or other reproductive material from open-pollinated vegetables, grain, herbs, and flowers for use from year to year for annuals and nuts, tree fruits, and berries for perennials and trees...
- Sepp HolzerSepp HolzerJosef "Sepp" Holzer is a farmer, author, and an international consultant for natural agriculture...
- Small house movementSmall house movementThe small house movement is a popular description for the architectural and social movement that advocates living in small homes. It is particularly vocal in the USA, where the book The Not So Big House is credited with starting the backlash against supersized homes.-Background:While in developed...
- Sustainable designSustainable designSustainable design is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability.-Intentions:The intention of sustainable design is to "eliminate negative environmental...
- Transition TownsTransition TownsTransition Towns is a grassroots network of communities that are working to build resilience in response to peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability...