Fukuoka Masanobu Passes On

"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings." Masanobu Fukuoka

Fukuoka Masanobu, Japan's great-grandfather of natural farming, has passed away on August 16. He became 95 years old. One-Straw Farming is perhaps the best known of Fukuoka-sensei's many works.

In his books, Fukuoka describes Natural Farming as "… a Buddhist way of farming that originates in the philosophy of 'Mu' or nothingness, and returns to a 'do-nothing' nature." He writes about Mahayana Natural Farming (Mahayana is one of the two major schools or sects of Buddhism) as "… the very embodiment of life in accordance with nature… [it] 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."


permaculture has adopted many things from Fukuoka. Besides the many agricultural techniques, such as continuous no-tillage grain growing and growing vegetables like wild plants, permaculture has also learned an important new approach for devising practical strategies. Most importantly, the philosophy of natural farming has given permaculture a truly spiritual basis lacking in its earlier teachings.