One Straw Revolution Review

Nadim Barakat
Professor Santos
April 9 2018
English
          Evaluation of The One Straw Revolution

        Over the past few weeks, we read the nonfiction book The One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka. Fukuoka, a trained scientist, worked with the Japanese government during World War II to develop ways to increase food production for the country. Not long after, he left his job for a small farm and wrote his book The One Straw Revolution. In it he describes a radical way of farming, which he calls “do-nothing” farming, and is very different from the methods used by modern farmers. While many farmers stress increasing yield by using large amounts of fertilizers, chemicals, and genetic engineering, Fukuoka avoids all those techniques and believes in a natural way of farming. For example, he states in his book that he “reached the conclusion that there was no need to plow, no need to apply fertiliser, no need to make compost, no need to use insecticide” (Fukuoka 15). In essence, this book asserts that natural techniques, rather than complicated and artificial ones are not only beneficial for farming in specific but for many other aspects of life such as education in general.

        Like any book, The One Straw Revolution has its strengths and weaknesses. I believe that this book’s strengths are in its philosophical teachings. The ideas of a natural way of life can be applied to any person, regardless of location. For example, whether you are a farmer or not, you can still understand and appreciate the philosophical ideas that Fukuoka expresses. However, this is not true with some of the specific farming techniques that he writes about in the book. For instance, he describes the way rice is harvested and dried, which to many people is not very beneficial to know. Online reviews seemed to agree with me by saying, “ you don’t really read The One Straw Revolution for gardening tips. For one thing, it’s only directly relevant to Japan. More importantly, the book is as much a work of philosophy as it is a life story or an explanation of natural agriculture” (Williams). This is consistent with why we chose not to read certain parts of the book.

        I enjoyed The One Straw Revolution and recommend it to anyone searching for answers in the confusing and complicated food industry. I think that it has the potential to serve as an inspiring and even lifestyle changing book as it preaches a different philosophy than many are used to. Even though the book contains information that may not be particularly useful for an audience of college students in the United States, I believe this book has many benefits for that audience that should not be overlooked because of a few shortcomings.




References
Fukuoka, Masanobu. The One-Straw Revolution.

Williams, Jeremy. “The One Straw Revolution Review.” Makewealthhistory.org, 6 July 2010, makewealthhistory.org/2010/07/06/the-one-straw-revolution-by-masanobu-fukuoka/.