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  • Published: 15 June 2009
  • ISBN: 9781590173138
  • Imprint: NY Review Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 200
  • RRP: $29.99

The One-Straw Revolution

An Introduction to Natural Farming



Call it “Zen and the Art of Farming” or a “Little Green Book,” Masanobu Fukuoka’s manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book “is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical. It is an inspiring, necessary book about agriculture because it is not just about agriculture.”

Trained as a scientist, Fukuoka rejected both modern agribusiness and centuries of agricultural practice, deciding instead that the best forms of cultivation mirror nature’s own laws. Over the next three decades he perfected his so-called “do-nothing” technique: commonsense, sustainable practices that all but eliminate the use of pesticides, fertilizer, tillage, and perhaps most significantly, wasteful effort.

Whether you’re a guerrilla gardener or a kitchen gardener, dedicated to slow food or simply looking to live a healthier life, you will find something here—you may even be moved to start a revolution of your own.

  • Published: 15 June 2009
  • ISBN: 9781590173138
  • Imprint: NY Review Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 200
  • RRP: $29.99

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Praise for The One-Straw Revolution

  • "His minimalist approach reduces labour time to a fifth of more conventional practices. Yet his success in yields is comparable to more resource-intensive methods...The method is now being widely adopted to vegetate arid areas. His books, such as The One-Straw Revolution, have been inspirational to cultivators the world over." --New Internationalist
  • In "The One Straw Revolution--[Fukuoka] distilled his experience of the past thirty years. He not only introduced his principles of natural farming but put forward his understanding of how natural farming related to larger issues...[it was] in short, Fukuoka's plea for man to reexamine his relationship with nature in it's entirety....One Straw Revolution established Fukuoka's popular identity as a guru of natural farming." --Ramon Magsayay Award
  • "Japan's most celebrated alternative farmer...Fukuoka's vision offers a beacon, a goal, an ideal to strive for." -Tom Philpott, Grist
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