Fukuoka's work is vaguely impressionist and based on anecdotal evidence. That doesn't mean it has no value, but it has no scientific credentials whatsoever.

I think he was lucky to live in a country that became food secure because of scientific and technological interventions. These are the objective circumstances which allowed him to write about and practise alternative farming.

You will never find a Fukuoka in, say Central Africa, where "do nothing" farming is the current practise. And where malnutrition and hunger are the rule. Central African farmers use no fertilizers, no pesticides, no insecticides, no fungicides, no mechanisation, no hybrids, nothing. They also die in scores.

Quite frankly, I think that most nations will go through a phase of dirty modernity, which brings crude wealth, generates a demographic transition (like the one seen in Japan) and creates bourgeois middle classes, from which figures like Fukuoka can emerge.

It is only after this dirty phase, that people become wealthy enough to invest in restoration, conservation and "do nothing" philosophies.

Perhaps Fukuoka should be put in context a bit more. It's always important to analyse the material circumstances which allowed gurus and their followers to emerge. In Fukuoka's case, these are quite obviously the exact opposite of what he suggested.

Thanks for pointing it out! I just ordered it on ILL and it should be a fascinating read!

Stephanie

It's a hard call.   We all want leisure.  To not farm.  But we all want good food.  Which requires if not farming, then hard work and oversight.

I believe that America will be sprawling every more at a higher order of magnitude during this, our next rung on the energy latter, as we step up to the Hydrogen Economy.

We'll each have more land per family and bigger houses as we turn from a tightly coupled to a loosely coupled grid.

That means we can have leisure to self-farm and yet have Wimax to order trendy garden supplies from Smith and Hawken.

In Anthony Minghella's magnificent Civil War epic, "Cold Mountain," which we recently watched afresh (and much of which takes place out in Tom Philpott country, or not far away), the tough, hard-working, no-nonsense character Ruby, played by Rene'e Zellweger, comments about her shiftless, ne'er-do-well father: "That man is so full of manure that if you put him on the ground and throw some dirt on him, another one like him will grow."

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Quite frankly, I think that most nations will go through a phase of dirty modernity, which brings crude wealth, generates a demographic transition (like the one seen in Japan) and creates bourgeois middle classes, from which figures like Fukuoka can emerge.

Just wondering - where do you think the energy for this is going to come from?

Remember before you answer - any large-scale renewable system can be built only on the foundation of cheap, plentiful fossil fuels.

....... operated under brutal economic pressures. Subsistence farming has always been hard work at slave wages. It was NEVER Little House on the Prairie. That's a fantasy. There is no going back to the age of small farms. It isn't going to happen, because they can't deliver. We will need industrial farms from this point on. The issue isn't industrial farming, the issue is how do we continue with intensive agriculture to feed upwards of 7 billion people while warding off the negative effects of same.

"In our time, small-scale farmers operate under brutal economic pressure -- and the resources needed to develop a truly sustainable agriculture too often lie beyond their grasp. So we slog on, doing our best, often falling short."

Victory in Pattani

Sure, any small scale farm -- anything at all, really -- will necessarily be built upon a foundation of industrialized monoliths. I hardly find this reason to discount his philosophy. We are always learning from the past. Those of us who happen to exist in an atmosphere of affluence and security are uniquely able to ponder and explore what may be "next".

Agriculture, as with the economics of all resources, is an ever equilibrating force (real estate market, energy, etc.). Industrial agriculture is rapidly approaching the point at which it can no longer sustain itself. Thus the return to small(er) scale farming, the industrialization of organics, local food, the mainstreaming of local foods, etc. These trajectory's, while often predictable, are not unidirectional vehicles on a crash course. Rather, security often finds people looking back, seeing what they had foolishly forgotten, and recalling those practices...

The argument suggesting that all must go through a period of "dirty farming" is a familiar, Marxist ideology in which a prescribed time line is adhered to by all. While it is instructive as a starting point, history just ain't a science.

So who really cares what the socioeconomic circumstances of these people are/were? This reminds me of the presidential campaigns, in which the amount of homes owned by a candidate is favored over the details of his policies.

Matthew Cronheim

Just wondering - where do you think the energy for this is going to come from?

Remember before you answer - any large-scale renewable system can be built only on the foundation of cheap, plentiful fossil fuels.

Russ, you're right. Cheap and plentiful. Let's first do the 'plentiful' bit: there's more coal than we can use. That's the fuel China and India are using to rapidly industrialise. Interestingly, China is one of the largest investors in renewables.

The 'cheap' bit is more interesting. As long as fossil fuels (of which we have established that they are 'plentiful'), remain too cheap, there will be no investments in renewables. So it's best to have them a bit more expensive, prompting countries to make definitive switches to renewables.

So what we really need is plentiful expensive fossil fuels. Which is exactly where we are.

I don't see how a Fukuoka based farming system can become global. It will work in highly advanced, post-industrial societies which are extremely wealthy and which have low fertility rates and aging populations. But it won't work in the rapidly developing countries, who need quick fixes to produce enough food to make a transition to becoming industrialised nations with lower fertility rates. Eventually, these countries too, after the dirty phase, will have enough resources to invest in more sustainable production methods.

Russ, you're right. Cheap and plentiful. Let's first do the 'plentiful' bit: there's more coal than we can use. That's the fuel China and India are using to rapidly industrialise. Interestingly, China is one of the largest investors in renewables.

No, Peak Coal is not far off. Most projections, at current usage rates (which may increase), place it sometime in the 2020s.

And, large amounts of oil are used in mining it. Since Peak Oil is either happening already or is a few years away, it's soon going to become increasingly difficult and expensive to mine what's there, so the aforementioned coal peak may be enforced much sooner simply because it won't be possible to mine large amounts economically.

(I suppose slaves could always dig it out, but that's a question for the coal-mongers to ponder.)

(Also, it seems you have a jolly unconcern with climate change, if you're so gung ho about coal, one of the true afflictions of our world. Climate change will of course most grievously affect the poor about whom you always claim to care so much.)  

The 'cheap' bit is more interesting. As long as fossil fuels (of which we have established that they are 'plentiful') [Nope - the contrary.], remain too cheap, there will be no investments in renewables. So it's best to have them a bit more expensive, prompting countries to make definitive switches to renewables.

First I should clarify what I meant by cheap. I meant to include a carbon price, and that ALL the external costs be internalized. Such a true price for fossil fuels would be very "expensive" according to the way you used the term, but still "cheap" compared to what the price will become if/when energy descent is precipitous, as seems likely.
So by that measure fossil fuels today are not only cheap but artificially cheap below what would still be their natural "cheap" price.

So- while you're right about interest in renewables being a function mostly of fossil fuel prices, these prices have been and are evidently too low to foster any sort of renewable renaissance.

However, when I referred to "cheap, plentiful fossil fuels", I wasn't even referring primarily to price signals.
I was referring to the large fossil fuel inputs required to mine and construct the renewables materials, the panels, the steel, etc., to fuel the vehicles to transport the materials,, the workers, to construct the turbines, to generally provide the societal infrastructure while this transformation was taking place (also to provide any necessary backup generation during at least an interim period), and to maintain political and socioeconomic stability while it was taking place.

And of course this all assumes some future when the energy from renewables will provide for their own maintenance. From what I've read, that's questionable.

So, that's why I'm a pessimist on this vaunted renewable energy civilization ever being built.  

"And of course this all assumes some future when the energy from renewables will provide for their own maintenance. From what I've read, that's questionable.

So, that's why I'm a pessimist on this vaunted renewable energy civilization ever being built."  

You pretend to give a shit, but you don't. People who give a shit think in positive ways about how to tackle challenges. People who just highlight the roadblocks are useless. That would include you. you want the system to come crashing down. At least be honest about it. You and Wolverine are of the same ilk. And you're both dead wrong by the way. It ain't going to come crashing down. Mankind is not going to run out of energy and revert to a hunter - gatherer status. Sorry buddy. Go shoot a bear, wear some bear skins, and live in the backwoods of Maine. The rest of us will work to make the world a better place while you self indulge this bullshit.

Victory in Pattani

They are not writing based on sound analysis. Russ is writing his DESIRED outcome, not a probable one. That's transparent.

Victory in Pattani

In working on a documentary about dairy, I came across the closest thing to "do-nothing" farming I had ever seen.  I visited some Wisconsin grazers and discovered that a family can milk 80 cows and run a successful farm, have a family and community life, even take vacations--and make a living that can send three kids to college. Rotational grazing is the best alternative to conventional farming that I have ever seen. They are also among the few farmers I've met in doing my doc work who aren't losing their shirts, their farms, their way of life, and are actually, can I say this? Happy!  Granted, the cows must be milked twice a day, but as far the rest of it goes--hauling manure, schlepping in feed, growing the grain and filling the silos , calling the vet, buying antibiotics and injecting rBGH, filling a combine with fuel, irrigating or fertilizing the soil--these are not a part of the required chores. The cows do all the work by eating the grass and forage, dropping the manure in the field where it becomes part of the new soil and doesn't run off into the streams, using their hooves to improve that soil and help fertilize it. The farmer  moves the simple electric fence from section to section so the grass is always fresh; the cows only time in confinement are the two hours a day  they spend in the barn being milked, and in bad weather. Not a bad life for farmer and cow, I'd say.

Contrast this to the time spent in confinement of those cows who are raised in factory dairies where their feet never touch soil, only the cement in the CAFO and the manure in the barn. As for the farmers in those situations: they seemed harried to me, between managing the labor who milks the cows, and the constant stress and strain of managing 800 to 8,000 cows in confinement. Definitely NOT "do nothing." They did not seem better off than those self-described slackers, the grazers. I also tasted some of the cheese produced from those grass-fed cows, and it was remarkable.

As a Japanese reviewer said, the point of the book, well beyond farming, is that "instead of struggling to control and command nature, we must learn to work with and learn from nature."

Masanobu Fukuoka explains that industrial agriculture works to control nature with the false assumption that humans can adequately understand nature and improve on it.  This speaks even more to genetic engineering, which has the capability to cause problems that are even more fundamental and long-lasting than those caused by chemical farming.

Human Beings with their tampering do something wrong, leave the damage unrepaired, and when the adverse results accumulate, work with all their might to correct them. When the corrective actions appear to be successful, they come to view these measures as splendid accomplishments.

Biod's comment speaks perfectly to my objection to agriculture: it is totally unnatural, destroying what grows naturally in favor of what one species wants.  Very ecologically destructive and arrogant toward nature and the natural world.  As Biod said, farming should be done with as little harm as possible.  Of course, the ultimate goal should be getting back to hunting and gathering, not harming nature and natural processes by farming.

Finally, Fukuoka's comment about specialization speaks perfectly to one of my objections to western science, which is its reductionist view of life.  Only by taking a holistic view can one have an idea of what's really going on.  The reductionist view of western science is very myopic.

"Of course, the ultimate goal should be getting back to hunting and gathering, not harming nature and natural processes by farming."

Maybe you want to be a hunter - gather with a painfully short life span, but I don't. Screw nature. You want to be a caveman, that's on you. But I'll skip the experience thank you very much.

Victory in Pattani

"Africa, until 1750 or so, had no widescale overpopulation problems, very rich biodiversity, and a variety of different economies, including farming, herding, hunting and gathering."

Africa had no over-poplution problem because:

a. It had low life expectancies due to medical, vice food, insecurities.
b. Low life expectancies due to constant low level warfare.

Africa was NEVER a paradise. Anyone who has lived there and studied the history of Africa can tell you it was ALWAYS a tough neighborhood.

Primitive societies have populations with short life spans - because their medical intervention is poor and they live closer to nature - which causes illness and biological infection frequently.

"Japan was food secure in the Edo period.  It only adopted industrialised farming from the 1960s and it is no longer food-secure, due to petroleum depletion trends and nitrogen overdose."

So you're telling me that Japan could feed it's current population using "organic" or other methods? Do you know how many people live there?

"The same can be said for the Pacific Islands, post British invasion.  Their societies lasted for thousands of years with steady state economies mixed farming and fishing until the arrival of so-called modernity."

Actually there is ample evidence that many died out. But again, their populations remained small - because they died young.

You can't compare by-gone eras and then make great claims about how much better things were then without putting it in context.

Victory in Pattani

I forgot another great quote from the book:

Humanity must stop indulging the desire for material possessions and personal gain and move instead toward spiritual awareness.

This is the way toward evolution of the human race.  Increased technology and complicated lifestyles, which only serve to further destroy the natural world and all who live there, are actually de-evolution; as the band Devo said, we are devolving into a race of robots.  Humans are past the point of physical evolution.  Mental and spiritual evolution are the only evolutionary paths still available.

Not to mention that killing for any reason other than to eat is totally immoral, and killing is what technology does.

"Not to mention that killing for any reason other than to eat is totally immoral, and killing is what technology does."

Killing occurs in the wild all the time, and not only for eating. Many animals kill for territorial reasons.

Victory in Pattani