RE: The last book you read
July 15, 2021 at 2:46 pm
(This post was last modified: July 15, 2021 at 2:52 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Rereading One Straw Revolution. It’s mostly but loosely about the philosophy of a japanese grower who worked out a system we’d (much later) call regenerative agriculture. Some credit him as the start of the movement.
The reason I constantly reread it is that it got me hooked on the idea of do-nothing farming. It’s full of anecdote and unreliable data-as-field trial….and ofc a bunch if zen deepity and narration…but what stuck with me and is still with me and genuinely changed the course of my life was the suggestion that, at the very bottom of our chains of production…we’re doing way too much work for nothing.
Do-nothing farming was what he called no-till agriculture, and he was certainly a pioneer in that field which has since become the uniform recommendation of every land granted institution in the United States. I re-read it, and other books about and by him, to try and work out whether he was just lazy and shiftless and accidentally right, or genuinely and contemplatively, and methodically right. Still not sure.
On the one hand…anyone who set out to commit to no till would have ended up with the same observations we have today, observations about soil health and fertility and water holding capacity, anyway. All of those observations, back in the 70’s…at least, would have been holy shit important on their own. In the other, his origin story( for lack of a better term) for the idea isn’t exactly credible and has nothing to do with agricultural practice. One can even get the sense that the success of the model is secondary at best, it’s main value in the confirmation of his worldview about things beyond the boundary of any productive acreage.
Read in a vacuum or at the time one might see it (and many did) as a set of wild testimonials about a wonder method. The efficacy of the alleged wonder method an implied argument for the truth of his philosophical world view.
Each time I reread it I lean more and more into some combination of elements. He was a charlatan selling a product…but, in a rare departure…..for charlatans anyway…the product worked. Places him in the company of people who knew they were full of shit but were so committed to a genuinely good idea that narrative fib here and there could be legitimate means of disseminating the practice.
You can find a full version by googling it, if anyone wanted to read it. Certainly don’t pay, that would be overwork.
-as an addendum, the practical aspects of his methods only became important to me later- for better or worse, I was initially drawn to his description of his farm…specifically the fall webs covering his entire acreage. Just something about that imagery. The literary antithesis of the sanitized and unbusy rows of my own experience.
The reason I constantly reread it is that it got me hooked on the idea of do-nothing farming. It’s full of anecdote and unreliable data-as-field trial….and ofc a bunch if zen deepity and narration…but what stuck with me and is still with me and genuinely changed the course of my life was the suggestion that, at the very bottom of our chains of production…we’re doing way too much work for nothing.
Do-nothing farming was what he called no-till agriculture, and he was certainly a pioneer in that field which has since become the uniform recommendation of every land granted institution in the United States. I re-read it, and other books about and by him, to try and work out whether he was just lazy and shiftless and accidentally right, or genuinely and contemplatively, and methodically right. Still not sure.
On the one hand…anyone who set out to commit to no till would have ended up with the same observations we have today, observations about soil health and fertility and water holding capacity, anyway. All of those observations, back in the 70’s…at least, would have been holy shit important on their own. In the other, his origin story( for lack of a better term) for the idea isn’t exactly credible and has nothing to do with agricultural practice. One can even get the sense that the success of the model is secondary at best, it’s main value in the confirmation of his worldview about things beyond the boundary of any productive acreage.
Read in a vacuum or at the time one might see it (and many did) as a set of wild testimonials about a wonder method. The efficacy of the alleged wonder method an implied argument for the truth of his philosophical world view.
Each time I reread it I lean more and more into some combination of elements. He was a charlatan selling a product…but, in a rare departure…..for charlatans anyway…the product worked. Places him in the company of people who knew they were full of shit but were so committed to a genuinely good idea that narrative fib here and there could be legitimate means of disseminating the practice.
You can find a full version by googling it, if anyone wanted to read it. Certainly don’t pay, that would be overwork.
-as an addendum, the practical aspects of his methods only became important to me later- for better or worse, I was initially drawn to his description of his farm…specifically the fall webs covering his entire acreage. Just something about that imagery. The literary antithesis of the sanitized and unbusy rows of my own experience.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
