The One-Straw Revolution - Multiworld India

the diet lacks nutrients, and dietary supplements become necessary. Thewater wheel and the milling factory are doing the work of the stomachand intestines, and their consequence is to make these organs lazy.It is the same with fuel. Crude oil is formed when the tissue ofancient plants buried deep in the earth is transformed by great pressureand heat. This substance is dug out of the desert, sent to a port by pipeline,and then transported by boat to Japan and refined into kerosene andoil at a big refinery.Which do you think is quicker, warmer, and more convenient,burning this kerosene or branches of cedar or pine from in front of thehouse? (at the present time much of the world is faced with a shortage offirewood. Implicit in Mr. Fukuoka’s argument is the need to plant trees.More broadly, Mr. Fukuoka is suggesting modest, direct answers to theneeds of daily life) The fuel is the same plant matter. The oil andkerosene just followed a longer path in getting here.Now they are saying that the fossil fuels are not enough, and that weneed to develop atomic energy. To search out the scarce uranium ore,compress it into radioactive fuel and burn it in a huge nuclear furnace isnot as easy as burning dried leaves with a match. Moreover, the hearthfire leaves only ashes, but after a nuclear fire has burned, the radioactivewaste remains dangerous for many thousands of years. The sameprinciple holds in agriculture. Grow a soft, fat rice plant in a floodedfield and you get a plant easily attacked by insects and disease. If“improved” seed varieties are used one must rely on the help of chemicalinsecticides and fertilizer.On the other hand, if you grow a small, sturdy plant in a healthyenvironment, these chemicals are unnecessary.Cultivate a flooded rice field with a plow or tractor and the soilbecomes deficient in oxygen, the soil167