permaculture

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

Hi Robin,

Thanks for this.  

Fukuoka's way of communicating tends to lead to misunderstanding.  This is 
not just due to an East/West communications gap.  Even in Japan, he has 
always been an eccentric and outsider who was not understood by the majority. 
 Well, that in itself is also understandable.  If we have a deep direct 
insight into something, it can be very difficult, or even impossible, to 
communicate this adequately to others.  We have to struggle for words to 
express what cannot be expressed in words, because whichever word we chose, 
there is always a way to misrepresenting it.

In the present instance, I would guess that he uses the idea of loosening the 
soil with dynamite to tell us just how hard the soil was before and how much 
better it was then, after using his method for a number of years.  So, lets 
be clear about this, dynamite (even if he had actually used it at one point 
in time) has nothing to do with Fukuoka's farming method or idea of nature.  
So much can be understood.

Dieter

PS: I have studied oriental culture and languages for nearly 40 years, lived 
many years in Japan and have experimented for over 10 years with natural 
farming in a semi-arid climate on poor soil that are as different from 
Fukuoka's native climate and soil as they can be. If I get some time, I will 
translate some other writings from the Japanese to show that natural farming 
is a reality and far more than Fukuoka.