Originally published in December 1975.
This was a very hard book to get through, and not as easy to read as "The Road Back to Nature", but it was one I had to finish because his beliefs are so similar to mine. He put into words, in a way that I never have been able to, exactly why I have always felt closer to God while out there digging in the dirt. Nature is a part of God! When originally designed, it was perfect. On page 214, author writes:

"A human environment cannot exist apart from nature, and so agriculture must be made the foundation for living…The earth is not merely soil, and the blue sky is more than just empty space. The earth is the garden of God, and the sky is where he sits. The farmer who, chewing well the grain harvested from the Lord's garden, raises his face to the heavens in gratitude, lives the best and most perfect life possible."

Fukuoka's vision is for all people to return to the garden of God to farm. It would be a way of life in which one constantly reaffirms the source of life ('life' being another name for God). This is so important because humans really have forgotten where life comes from. Young people today believe food comes from the grocery store without another thought about it.

He does explain the “natural” way to farm, but, also the fallacies of science technology: growing expenses for larger farming equipment placed on farmers and the damages it really places on their land, synthetic fertilizers, chemical herbicides and pesticides, GMO crops, etc... We are removing ourselves further from nature by destroying our lands, and removing ourselves from God! But there is hope! It is proven that land can be rehabilitated, but man has to be willing to return to the natural way of farming again.

Most of the lessons on the natural way to farm is on growing rice and barley in Japan, but one can still use the same principals to farm, or garden, or to naturally raise farm animals here in the U.S. I’m left very encouraged and motivated to get started in trying out a few ideas from this book.

Available to read FREE at Internet Archive (can download to Kindle):

https://archive.org/details/TheNaturalWayOfFarming-MasanobuFukuoka ( )

Actually, tried to read, but couldn't concentrate well enough. Browsing tells me there is value in the contents. Perhaps will try again, when I'm ready to try growing rice.

Fukuoka's thoughts on farming and its place in the world. Plus wonderful insights into life, eating, farming and mankind.