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Sowing Seeds In The Desert: Natural Farming, Global Restoration, And Ultimate Food Security (2012)

by Masanobu Fukuoka(Favorite Author)

4.27 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1603584188 (ISBN13: 9781603584180)

languge

English

genre

Food & Cookbooks

publisher

Chelsea Green Publishing

review 1: Though I was looking for more of a practical guide to permaculture, this was the only book my library had that was even close to the subject. This is more of a philosophical book, talking about his beliefs on nature, science, as well as giving sort of a history of how he came to his method of natural farming, as well as some of his travels and efforts in trying to spread the ideas. I read it in a couple hours of highly engaged reading. I really like this man's take on farming and the best way forward. I don't agree with his notion of strewing seeds globally with no regard to what's native to the area... which actually seems to go against his own philosophy, given that he basically sees the last few thousand years of agriculture (and especially the recent century or so) as ... moremistake upon mistake, full of unintended consequences caused by the mitigation efforts of the last round. Putting non-native plant seeds across a large area of the landscape could easily have major, negative effects on local ecology. So I can't get on board with this aspect of the book. But obviously the man's principles are sound in general, and can of course be utilized even with just native species. He writes that it is not natural for the world to be so full of [rapidly advancing] deserts; many such places were not deserts in the past, even in living memory, and in some places, mere years before today. Knowing that the actions of humans are the cause, we must solve the issue, and his ideas for greening the desert are welcome to my mind. No more dams or irrigation wells, which are short term "solutions," but rather spreading seeds and using the plants' to shade and loosen the soil, bring water up from below, and pump more water into the air, bringing rains. No more heavy handed work; his way is the "lazy way" of letting nature do the work, with we humans only doing the truly necessary work. Stuff like plowing, though so entrenched in the mind, may not be necessary (he assures us it isn't), and we are encouraged to observe nature to learn, instead of just going by tradition. As the old ways are turning Earth into a desert, this seems wise to me. I also appreciated that he stated the way advanced, technological methods of farming are in many ways just a way for those in power to control the people and the food (same thing, really). He doesn't dwell on this too much, but it's there, as it should be. Here are a few quotes that I personally found striking: "We have seen huge advances in modern medicine, but there is little value in the advancement of medicine if the number of sick people continues to increase.""In ancient times, I would like to think that people must have made drawing close to nature the most important goal of their lives.""Gradually I came to realize that the process of saving the desert of the human heart and revegetating the actual desert is actually the same thing.""I still remember the words of an Ethiopian tribesman who at first rejected my ideas of natural farming, 'are you asking me to become a farmer?' he asked. 'To be attached to the soil and to accumulate things are the acts of a degraded person.' ""If we list the things necessary for plants to grow, then sunlight, nutrients, water, and air are sufficient to create paradise."
review 2: I'm only a third of the way through this book but I just love it so much, it really speaks to me. I don't know if I read parts of Fukoakas philosophy in Mollison's work, but Ive had this thing in my mind saying "let the plants do the work" for everything whether its wind breaks, heating, food, whatever, they want to grow, want to live, we just have to let them. Im interested in his semi-wild farming as well as low energy,abundant, in harmony with nature its definitely something I want to aspire to. less

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