The One-Straw Revolution - Multiworld India

farmers used to compost the straw carefully all winter long to be surethat it would be completely decomposed by the following spring. That iswhy Japanese farmers have always kept their fields so neat and tidy. Thepractical knowledge of everyday life was that if farmers left straw lyingaround, they would be punished by heaven for their negligence.After years of experimentation, even technical experts have now,confirmed my theory that spreading fresh straw on the field six monthsbefore seeding is completely safe. This overturned all previous ideas onthe subject. But it is going to be a long while before the farmers becomereceptive to using straw in this manner.Farmers have been working for centuries to try to increase theproduction of compost. The Ministry ofAgriculture used to give incentive pay to encourage compostproduction, and competitive compost exhibitions were held as annualevents. Farmers came to believe in compost as though it were theprotective deity of the soil. Now again there is a movement to make morecompost, “better” compost, with earthworms and “compost-starter.”There is no reason to expect an easy acceptance of my suggestion thatprepared compost is unnecessary, that all you have to do is scatter freshunshredded straw across the field.In traveling up to Tokyo, looking out the window of the Tokaidotrain, I have seen the transformation of the Japanese countryside.Looking at the winter fields, the appearance of which has completelychanged in ten years, I feel an anger I cannot express. The formerlandscape of neat fields of green barley, Chinese milk vetch, andblooming rape plants is nowhere to be seen. Instead, half-burned straw ispiled roughly in heaps and left soaking in the rain. That this straw isbeing neglected is proof of the’ disorder of modern farming. Thebarrenness of these180