A review by isneezachoo
Cuộc cách mạng một-cọng-rơm by Masanobu Fukuoka, Hoàng Hải Vân

5.0

A book written by a recovering academic for recovering academics. Probably my fav book I've read all year. Would not have expected such a thought provoking book to be so easy to read! Stands up to big ag by saying science has made us think we need all of these "developed techniques", but this had made us less observant of the land bc we think we can conquer it instead of farm with it. Fukuoka believes that crops grow themselves, and that if "natural balance" wasn't so upset (by colonialism, greed? Idk he doesn't quite specify), then all the pest control/weeds/fertilizer/tilling would not be needed.

Fav quote ab difference from a farmer and a merchant: "no matter how the harvest will turn out, whether or not there will be enough food to eat, in simply sowing seed and caring tenderly for plants under natures guidance there is joy"

Another fav: "the ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings" meaning not perfection as in Western purity definitions, but perfection as in healed. Like once a farmer decides to heal their relationship to competition, they will stop killing pests with pesticide because they will see how connected pests are to their predators and how the pesticide will also kill their predators which could naturally take out pests

I took this book as more of a philosophy than a how-to bc any land I work is most likely not going to be free of what Fukuoka refers to as "upsets"