The One-Straw Revolution - Multiworld India

field. His motto was: “Treat one strand of straw as important and nevertake a useless step.” It made him a wealthy man.“Even if you burned the straw, I don’t think it could kindle a spark tostart a revolution.”A gentle breeze rustled through the orchard trees, sunlight flickeringamong the green leaves. I began to talk about using straw in growingrice. It has been nearly forty years since I realized how important strawcould be in growing rice and barley.At that time, passing an old rice field in Kochi Prefecture which hadbeen left unused and uncultivated for many years, I saw healthy youngrice sprouting up through a tangle of weeds and straw which hadaccumulated on the field’s surface. After working on the implications ofthat for many years, I came out advocating a completely new method ofrice and barley growing.Believing that this was a natural and revolutionary way of farming, Iwrote about it in books and magazines, and spoke of it on television andradio dozens of times.It seems a very simple thing, but farmers are so set in their thinkingabout how straw should be used, that it is unlikely that they will acceptchange easily. Spreading fresh straw on a field can be risky because riceblast and stem rot are diseases always present in rice straw. In the past,these diseases have caused great damage, and this is one of the mainreasons that farmers have always turned the straw into compost beforeputting it back onto the field. Long ago, careful disposal of rice strawwas commonly practiced as a countermeasure against blast disease, andthere were times in Hokkaido when the wholesale burning of straw wasrequired by law.Stem borers also enter the straw to pass the winter. To prevent aninfestation of these insects,179