The One-Straw Revolution - Multiworld India

Farming with StrawSpreading straw might be considered rather unimportant, but it isfundamental to my method of growing rice and winter grain. It isconnected with everything, with fertility, with germination, with weeds,with keeping away sparrows, with water management. In actual practiceand in theory, the use of straw in farming is a crucial issue. This issomething that I cannot seem to get people to understand.Spreading the Straw UncutThe Okayama Testing Center is now trying direct seedingrice-growing in 80 percent of its experimental fields. When I suggestedthat they scatter the straw uncut, they apparently thought this could notbe right, and ran the experiments after chopping it up with a mechanicalshredder. When I went to visit the testing a few years ago, I found thatthe fields had been divided into those using shredded straw, uncut straw,and no straw at all. This is exactly what I did for a long time and sincethe uncut works best, it is uncut straw that I use.Mr. Fujii, a teacher at Yasuki Agricultural High School in ShimanePrefecture, wanted to try direct seeding and came to visit my farm. Isuggested that he spread uncut straw over his field. He returned the47