The One-Straw Revolution - Multiworld India

considerations of soil analysis, pH, and harvest yields. Some time ago, afellow from the Paris Organic Gardening Center climbed up themountain, and we spent the day talking. Hearing about affairs in France,I learned that they were planning an organic farming conference on aninternational scale, and as preparation for the meeting, this Frenchmanwas visiting organic and natural farms all over the world. I showed himaround the orchard and then we sat down over a cup of mugwort tea anddiscussed some of my observations over the past thirty-odd years.First I said that when you look over the principles of the organicfarming popular in the West, you will find that they hardly differ fromthose of the traditional Oriental agriculture practiced in China, Korea,and Japan for many centuries. All Japanese farmers were still using thistype of farming through the Meiji and Taisho Eras [1868-1926] and rightup until the end of the Second World War.It was a system which emphasized the fundamental importance ofcompost and of recycling human and animal waste. The form ofmanagement was intensive and included such practices as crop rotation,companion planting, and the use of green manure. Since space waslimited, fields were never left untended and the planting and harvestingschedules proceeded with precision. All organic residue was made intocompost and returned to the fields. The use of compost was officiallyencouraged and agricultural research was mainly concerned with organicmatter and composting techniques.So an agriculture joining animals, crops, and human beings into onebody existed as the mainstream of Japanese farming up to modern times.It could be said that organic farming as practiced in the117