What is the #Fukuoka method? 🌾🤔 Although the term "#regenerative agriculture" is relatively modern, the origin of some of its ideas is centuries old 📜 We explain one of its main references from the 20th century 🧵👇 @creaf.cat
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Masanobu Fukuoka (1913-2008) was the Japanese biologist, farmer and philosopher who promoted the natural agriculture or natural #farming model, which is based on intervening as little as possible in the system to let natural processes do their work 🌳♻️
Specifically, it was based on CROP ROTATION within the same year and on finding the right time to carry out each action in order to maintain the natural fertility of the land 🌱 The best-known implementation of his method is what he did on #rice fields 🍚
Among the cultivation of this cereal, Masanobu sowed white clover seeds in early #autumn ☘️, a leguminous grass that enriches the soil with nitrogen 🤎 Then, after a while, he also sowed rye and barley seeds, well-known winter cereals, among the rice 🌾✨
When the right time came, he harvested the rice, mowed it, threshed or beat it (separated the edible part from the straw or husk) and returned the straw to the field to use it as a green protective cover for the soil 🚜💚
White clover, once grown, reduced the adventitious plants, fixed nitrogen in the soil and served as green cover 🟢 Rye and barley grew between the clover and the straw 🐣 Just before harvesting these #cereals, rice was sown again and the cycle was restarted 🔄
By doing this, Fukuoka could grow #winter cereals in the same rice field for many years, without reducing soil fertility 😲 Therefore, he was already applying some basic principles of #RegenerativeAgriculture: crop rotation, production diversification, use of green covers... 🥰
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