The One-Straw Revolution - Multiworld India

educed. Reports of the latter rarely appear in print.Among agricultural chemicals, herbicides are probably the mostdifficult to dissuade farmers from using. Since ancient times the farmerhas been afflicted with what might be termed "the battle against theweeds." Plowing, cultivating between the rows, the ritual of ricetransplanting itself, all are mainly aimed at eliminating weeds. Before thedevelopment of herbicides, a farmer had to walk many miles through theflooded rice fields each season, pushing a weeding tool up and down therows and pulling weeds by hand. It is easy to understand why thesechemicals were received as a godsend. In the use of straw and clover andthe temporary flooding of the fields, I have found a simple way to controlweeds without either the hot, hard labor of weeding or the use ofchemicals.A mudwalled hut in the orchard.73