What is Natural Farming?

Natural Farming is a farming practice that imitate the way of nature. It can be interpreted in many ways and sometimes people misinterpret the notion of Natural Farming since the word “Natural” is used so casually in many places.

Natural Farming is to do nothing…

Basis of natural farming is to do nothing. When you are doing nothing, that is nature at work. Doing nothing does not necessarily mean that you do no work at all. It is to remove all the human prejudice from farming and leave it to nature. It almost appears Zen meditation to be one with nature. Natural farming involves NO TILL, NO WEEDING, NO PESTICIDE, NO FERTILIZER.

Natural Farming is developed in Japan primarily by Masanobu Fukuoka and Mokichi Okada.

Masanobu Fukuoka – One Straw Revolution

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka

Most conventional farming practices and researches are done to improve farming by adding this and adding that while Mr. Masanobu Fukuoka started removing unnecessary steps in farming practices such as weeding, pesticide, tilling and fertilizer by questioning himself “How can I NOT do this and that?” Basically, he only saws seeds and harvest. Nature takes care of everything.

DO NOTHING is the beginning, the conclusion and the way of nature. Realizing that we do not know anything. Nature creates everything and people are there to serve nature.

“Natural Farming” (or “Shizen No-ho” in Japanese) comes from his style of farming close to nature itself. Conventional farming practices are built on human centered biased farming and by removing all these biases natural farming is achieved.

Mokichi Okada

The principles of Nature Farming utilizes and adopts crop production to conform to these dynamic and balanced production systems in nature, which are a result of the interactions of sunlight, water, soil, animals, plants, and microorganisms in natural ecosystems.

It is very important to observe nature without being too confident of our knowledge but with a modest, clear and pure state of mind. In addition, growing good crops requires the development of affection to the crops. Only with such love, a farmer can realize the requirements of soil and for crops to grow healthily, and hence carry out necessary management practices. Agricultural production is a vocation and should be an act of seeking a truly balanced health of all kinds of life forms, including humans as well as the soil, the crops, and the livestock.

Products of Nature Farming, which are safe and full of vitality, have saved various people suffering from diseases, such as children having atopic dermatitis and adult cancer patients. Nature Farming can achieve these. It is a farming method that shows the fundamental way of living to human beings.

*Excerpt from “International Nature Farming Research Center (INFRC)”