Masanobu Fukuoka

Born in a small farming village on the island of Shikoku in southern Japan in 1914, Masanobu Fukuoka was trained in microbiology as a plant pathologist. His command of this newly introduced Western science soon won him what promised to be a steady, if uneventful career as an agricultural customs inspector running tests on incoming and outgoing plants at the port of Yokohama. Then suddenly, at only twenty-five, doubts set in. He started to question everything he had learned about the “wonders of modern agricultural science, “ and in a dawning of vision he came to see that all the “accomplishments” of human civilization are meaningless before the totality of nature. From that moment on, his life has been dedicated to fulfilling the promise of that vision: bringing it into ever greater, more immediate focus. Since the publication of his best-selling introductory work, One-Straw Revolution, he has accepted invitations to visit the United States in 1978, Europe in 1981, and Africa in 1985, where he lectured and made a tour of organic farms, ut he prefers to stay close by his fields. He still writes, and openly shares of his philosophy and farming methods with all who come to him eager to learn.