The One-Straw Revolution - Multiworld India

four inches during these years. This is largely the result of returning tothe soil everything grown in the field but the grain itself.No Need to Prepare CompostThere is no need to prepare compost. I will not say that you do notneed compost-only that there is no need to work hard making it. If strawis left lying on the surface of the field in the spring or fall and is coveredwith a thin layer of chicken manure or duck droppings, in six months itwill completely decompose.To make compost by the usual method, the farmer works like crazyin the hot sun, chopping up the straw, adding water and lime, turning thepile, and hauling it out to the field. He puts himself through all this griefbecause he thinks it is a "better way." I would rather see people justscattering straw ox hulls or woodchips over their fields.Travelling along the Tokaido line in western Japan I have noticedthat the straw is being cut more coarsely than when I first started talkingabout spreading it uncut. I have to give the farmers credit. But themodern day experts are still saying that it is best to use only so manyhundred pounds of straw per quarter acre. Why don't they say to put allthe straw back in the field? Looking out the train window, you can seefarmers who have cut and scattered about half the straw and cast the restaside to rot in the rain.If all the farmers in Japan got together and started to put all the strawback on their fields, the result would be an enormous amount of compostreturned to the earth.GerminationFor hundreds of years farmers have taken great49