#FieldNotes006: The Fukuokan Metaphysics of Farming

Spiritual ecology and the road to enlightenment

Aug 27, 2024

I can think of no better book explaining natural farming than Masanobu Fukuoka’s The Natural Way of Farming. Natural farming is perhaps best positioned as a juxtaposition of conventional agriculture. Fukuoka (d. 2008) was a rice farmer in Japan who focused on cultivating rice and other grains without tilling the soil or using synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Fukuoka's approach to rice farming involved growing rice without flooding the fields continuously, as was traditionally done, and using cover crops like clover to maintain soil health. He called his philosophical approach to farming Do-Nothing, perhaps an overstatement but nevertheless important.

Fukuoka's rice yields were quite impressive, often comparable to or even surpassing conventional farming methods. Despite not using synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or tilling the soil, his natural farming system produced yields that were close to or on par with the highly mechanized and chemically-intensive methods common in Japan at the time.

At the core of his philosophy, Fukuoka saw no difference between the aspirations of natural farming and the path to enlightenment, and the cultivation of a spiritual practice. He classified three forms of farming:

Mahayana Natural Farming: From Sanskrit: "महायान" (mahāyāna), where "mahā" means "great" and "yāna" means "vehicle" or "path." Fukuoka wrote that this is when “the human spirit and human life blend with the natural order and man devotes himself entirely to the service of nature, he lives freely as an integral part of the natural world, subsisting on its bounty without having to resort to purposeful effort. [This] is realized when man becomes one with nature, for it is a way of farming that transcends time and space and reaches the zenith of understanding and enlightenment.”
Hinayana Natural Farming: from the Sanskrit word "हीनयान" (hīnayāna), where "hīna" means "lesser" or "deficient" and "yāna" means "vehicle" or "path." He writes, this “type of farming arises when man earnestly seeks entry to the realm of Mahayana farming, Desirous of the true blessings and bounty of nature, he prepares himself to receive it. This is the road leading directly to complete enlightenment, hat is short of that perfect state. The relationship between man and nature here is like that of a lover who yearns after his loved one and asks for her hand, but has not realized full union.”
Scientific Farming: Man in a mechanized world, Fukuoka believes this is the lesser form of farming. He writes, that this is when we exist “in a state of contradiction in which he is basically estranged from nature, living in a totally artificial world, yet longs for a return to nature. A product of this condition, scientific farming forever wanders blindly back and forth, now calling upon the blessings of nature, now rejecting it in favor of human knowledge and action. Returning to the same analogy, our lover here is unable to decide whose hand to ask in marriage, and, while agonizing over his indecision, imprudently courts the ladies, heedless of social proprieties.”

Fukuoka represents these three farming “vehicles” in a diagram composed of concentric circles (see figure 1). At the core, the cosmos, from an anthropocentric perspective) is split between Man (that which we have control over), Heaven (that which is decreed), and Earth (that which we can influence).

In the diagram, there are four numbered circles, and one seemingly erratic shape. At the centre and at the circumference, we find circle #1, which represents Mahayana Farming. As mentioned above, it is the pure, enlightened form of farming which can only be attained by the enlightened person. Circle #2, which is found in the middle represents Hinayana Farming, the beginning path towards enlightenment. “Circle” #3, which is actually an erratic shape, represents scientific farming. It is the engineering of solutions that leads to more problems (e.g. chemical fertilizers that lead to an increase of pests, which leads to more management, and so forth). Finally, circle #4 represents Liepig’s Law of the Minimum, which states that the growth of an organism is limited by the scarcest resource or nutrient, even if all other necessary resources are abundant. The issue with this law is that it dismissed the idea that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Fukuoka highlights that this is a gross oversimplification of natural complex systems, which can't be reduced to individual. Vegetables grown with chemical NPK fertilizers are not equivalent, in both taste and nutrition, to those grown using natural methods.

Farming teaches us to participate in cycles greater than ourselves. In this way, this process is a deeply spiritual exercise that helps us see ourselves in the entangled web. For Masanobu Fukuoka, this insight was clear. And for that, his legacy continues to live on.

Upcoming Offering

Permaculture & Regenerative Design Workshop

October 19th to November 16th 2024

This five-part workshop will cover the fundamentals of permaculture design as outlined in Bill Mollison's Introduction to Permaculture. We will also look at cultivating a design mindset using Christopher Alexander’s The Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language. Other material will include Toby Hemenway’s Gaia Garden’s, Masonobu Fukuoka’s Natural Way of Farming, Ben Falk’s The Resilient Farm and Homestead, and David Fleming’s Lean Logic.

Online sessions will be held on Zoom, and recordings, slides, and resources will be made available. Online-only options available.

For more details on what we’ll cover, I invite you to check out #FieldNotes004: Permaculture & Regenerative Design Workshop.