Today we were weeding, something we do not do as often as you might expect, when the farmer asked me if I had read a book called The One-Straw Revolution. I said no. He told me that most of his previous interns had arrived at the farm clutching a copy of the book. Its author was a Japanese farmer named Masanobu Fukuoka, who through three decades’ worth of experimentation developed a system of farming free of tilling, weeding, fertilizing, or any kind of machinery. After giving up a career in agricultural research and produce inspection soon after the end of World War II, Fukuoka moved back to the farm on the island of Shikoku where he was born, to begin his experimental farm. His “no-till” method eventually created some of the most fertile land in Japan. But Fukuoka remained virtually unknown outside of his own country until the publication of The One-Straw Revolution, an exposition of his techniques and philosophy, in 1975. Three years later an English translation was published in America by Rodale Press. Fukuoka, not above cultivating an image of sage Oriental obscurity, acquired a mystical status within America’s burgeoning organic and back-to-the-earth movements. Then, strangely, The One-Straw Revolution went out of print. The farmer read the book himself a few years ago, when he began working on other people’s organic farms.

“So I’m the only intern who’s never heard of this book?” I asked.

“Yep,” he said. “Everybody else is like, ‘Let’s create a no-till method and start a one-straw revolution!’”

“And what do you say?”

“I tell them they can do it on their own farm.”

After we had finished work for the day I looked up Fukuoka. Here’s a pretty illustrative excerpt from a 1982 interview with Mother Earth News:

Interviewer: But there are many kinds of clover that could be used, aren’t there?

Fukuoka: Ah, you see? That’s exactly what I mean. That’s your reason speaking! Don’t question so much. If I suggest white clover, use white clover. If I suggest red clover, then use red clover. Over the years I’ve tried vetch, alfalfa, lupine, trefoil, and many kinds of clover … and I reached the conclusion that for natural no-till rotation of grains and vegetables, and as a ground cover in the orchard, white clover is best.

Fukuoka died in August 2008, at the age of 95. The New York Review of Books republished The One-Straw Revolution in June as part of its Classics series.

—From “Intern Chronicles: Organic Farming,” by Avner Davis