In the last issue I commented on case studies from the Kyoto Conference in the areas of the environment and social welfare. This time I turn to non-tillage cultivation and organic recycling, including home gardening.

For a long time I have been saying that conventional agricultural technology—with the exception of the type of self-sufficient agriculture that ignores labor productivity—will always, from a management standpoint, structurally operate in the red and will find it difficult to stand on its own without government support.

For a long time I have been saying that conventional agricultural technology—with the exception of the type of self-sufficient agriculture that ignores labor productivity—will always, from a management standpoint, structurally operate in the red and will find it difficult to stand on its own without government support.

Without going into advanced examples from abroad, in general the way this has been overcome is by various methods including expanding the scope of farming, mechanizing agriculture, and by streamlining, all of which makes small scale farming impossible.

Agriculture begins with tilling the soil. Because in general the deeper you till the better the crops, the basic principle has always been to till as deeply as possible, and this has led to the use of heavy machinery on farms which in turn has led to farmers going into debt to pay for the machinery.

To maintain soil fertility the use of organic material is a must, but it takes considerable time and effort to collect various types of organic material, compost it, and apply it to fields. As a countermeasure to this, chemical fertilizers were developed, but this has led not only to the devastation of agriculture land but also to the oxidation of subterranean water and rivers and a variety of problems.

As a result of the continued use in the past of chemical fertilizers that are dubbed "scientific," and which are based on nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous, there have been many harmful side effects including an excess of phosphorous in the soil throughout Japan, and greenhouse cultivation that has excessive potassium.

It has become especially clear in Okinawa Prefecture that because of an excess of phosphorous the sugar content in sugar cane can't rise above a certain level, which has led to proposals to delete phosphorous from fertilization plans. This is a classic case of the failures of science, however in the field this isn't well understood and people are still supporting fertilization based on the use of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous. To reach the ideal balance of materials, Nature Farming and organic farming would require huge amounts of organic material, which is impracticable.

In addition, agriculture is plagued by such serious problems as insect pests and weeds. This had directly led to the development of agrochemicals and herbicides. The damage from these is considerable and had led to a crisis at present, where agriculture is actually destroying everything.

We're actually starting to see how science is leading to the destruction of humankind. The revival of Nature Farming and organic agriculture is an attempt to correct the errors of modern scientific farming, but from an economic standpoint both of these methods have their own issues to overcome.

There are many ways of approaching non-tillage cultivation, including the mixing of crops with deep roots and those with shallow roots, allowing crops to co-exist with other crops and with weeds, but if one isn't very careful these crops will soon lose out to weeds and insect pests. Economically these methods aren't feasible, and as the scale increases so do the difficulties involved in applying these methods.

Ever since I first began promoting the use of EM™ I've advocated non-tillage cultivation. If tillage is needed, I've always argued, it should be done at a shallow level, just scratching the surface, and fields should not be left fallow but should be continuously cropped. These ideas are based on the philosophy of Mokichi Okada, the founder of Nature Farming, but without employing EM™ it is difficult for these methods to be widely used.

The efficacy of these methods has been plainly demonstrated by the Nature Farming Research Center in Saraburi, Thailand. Here we see many cases in which quite small-scale farmers, with under 20 are of land, are not only self-sufficient but able to market their produce as well. This method is economically more advantageous than cultivating narcotic plants and can be a decisive factor in the battle against drug cultivation.

In Japan, too, many people have begun non-tillage farming, but this has remained at the level of skillfully incorporating EM™ into existing agricultural practice, rather than transforming agricultural methods through the use of EM™.

In his presentation at the Kyoto conference given by Mr. Masao Higuchi, chair of the Suruga EM™ Harmony group in Fukui Prefecture, entitled "The Cycle of Self-Sufficient Gardening Ushered in by EM™," he discussed how he began by incorporating EM™ waste recycling into existing farming methods. He had a large garden, managed to ship produce to farmers markets and restaurants, and though he made great effort to meet the requests of customers, he realized that in many respects he had reached the limits of what he could accomplish.

Fortunately Mr. Higuchi is not a farming professional, so he started using Nature farming methods that employed EM™, and had no resistance to non-tillage continuous cultivation. He experimented with many things and was able to overcome many of the limits he'd previously experienced, finally being recognized as an official JAS (Japan Agricultural Standards) organic producer. His utilization rate for his farmland is 3-4 times that of ordinary farmers, and his labor productivity and harvest rate is more than 5 times that of ordinary farmers.

Though the scale of his farm is small, the results he's shown over the past decade are impressive, and in his farm we can see the future farming model for a Japan that is steadily becoming an aging society. Mr. Higuchi's non-tillage continuous cultivation has started to have a great influence on others, including Mr. Jiro Kawasaki of Shinoyama City in Hyogo Prefecture.

Mr. Kawasaki is well known in the gardening session of the conference, a person who has rendered outstanding service to the conference by publishing a book of case studies about EM™ waste recycling entitled Transform the Soil and Transform People. Mr. Kawasaki also began by skillfully incorporating EM™ into existing farming methods, and though he was able to reach the optimal results, because old age was catching up with him he sought the guidance of Mr. Higuchi and switched to non-tillage continuous cultivation.

As a result, to commemorate his eightieth birthday Mr. Kawasaki wrote a book that will be published in the beginning of May entitled The World of Non-Tillage Cultivation concerning fifteen years of achievements in recycling food waste to make a pleasant home garden. The book, about 100 pages with some 500 photographs, is an enjoyable, unique look at, in Mr. Kawasaki's words, "Finding—and creating—joy and happiness," and it is sure to be a must read for everyone involved in home gardening. Since Mr. Kawasaki's operation is large scale, fulltime farmers will also find it of great use.

Two and half years ago, in order to take non-tillage continuous cultivation as far as it possibly could go, without any help from anyone else, I took a 15 are piece of wasteland and starting to cultivate mainly bananas and vegetables. Because I've been so busy I wasn't able to make much progress for a long while, but finally I've been able to lay the groundwork for it and begin cultivating in earnest. The field is just under 10 are, and last year I was able to get a yield of 1,500 kg. of bananas and enough vegetables to feed nine families, occasionally distributing them to EMRO (EM Research Organization, Inc.) staff members.

Because this is non-tillage continuous cultivation, the area between the rows of crops is covered with (used) carpeting, there are no weeds whatsoever, and I haven't used any Bokashi. As fertilizer and to control insect pests, I decided to use large amounts of EM™-FPE (EM™-Fermented Plant Extracts). (This is made by taking 1-2% rice bran, 1% Activated EM™, and 30g of SuperCera C [EM™-treated ceramic powder] into a drum, and adding weeds, natural herbs, branches trimmed from windbreak forests, and crop residue, mix it all together and let it ferment for 4-5 days.)

Limited space here prevents me from going into more detail, but my goal for this year is a crop of 3,000 kg of bananas and double the amount of vegetables compared to last year. If things go well the yield should exceed ten times that an ordinary farm would get, with a use of 120% of the available organic energy. I expect this year I will attain the ultimate in non-tillage continuous cultivation.

This page courtesy of