sustainable simplicity

Nearly ten years ago, I found myself deeply involved in the work of permaculture founding-father Bill Mollison. His writing is extensive and his influence on the development of the modern, sustainable, family-farm significant. His ideas about how to ensure long term sustainability on our planet are rather systematic. They require a great deal of planning and organizing. My extensive exploration of these concepts left me with a feeling that none of it was new or revolutionary – as though there is a common sense that died centuries ago, perhaps another unfortunate casualty of the Industrial Revolution

Then I discovered Masanobu Fukuoka. It was he who first inspired me to think about sustainability as a creative act. I believe that Fukuoka is, in some ways, the very opposite of Mollison – at least with regards to his methods. He would have us achieve the same goal, people living in harmony with our planet – but where Mollison’s brand of sustainability is a manufacturing of our environment, Fukuoka inspires us to closely mirror nature. His teachings suggest that our brains and their innovations unnecessarily complicate a natural way of being and create a rift between us and nature.

I am reminded of him today because an effort has started in California to transform “barren and neglected urban corners into colourful spaces of living greenery.”  Common Studio, based in LA, has developed Seed Bomb Vending Machines. Looking a bit like a gumball machine, for 25cents you receive a ball of clay, compost, and seeds that you toss into some barren space. Sun and rain do their work and voila, greenery sprouts from the Earth.

Fukuoka used no-till methods for growing grain and made seed balls that he tossed out into his fields. Bill Mollison borrowed this idea after reading The One-Straw Revolution and incorporated the seed ball technique into his permaculture teachings. Now you can get them in vending machines, in LA, and toss them out as an act of guerilla farming – an effort to reclaim the empty lots and dismal corners industry has left us with. I think that Fukuoka would approve.

Masanobu Fukuoka spent more than 60 years of his life finding the simplest way to live – try something, observe, try something else. Trained as a microbiologist, his methods could be called scientific, but his answers often removed many of the innovations we call ‘technological advances’ in favor of a return to something more closely resembling a solution devised by mother nature herself. He assumed little about a given situation, tested creative ideas, observed and constantly adjusted without seeking to control his environment.

Maybe these ‘Seed Bombs’ are an opportunity to bring some of his simplicity and little common sense into our urban areas and teach people just how easy it is to be close to nature. Perhaps these tiny balls of earth contain the seeds of a revolution.

Although his books are currently out of print and may or may not be at your public library, you can always read more about Masanoba Fukuoka on the internets.

Masanobu Fukuoka’s Natural Farming and Permaculture, by Larry Korn

Greening The Desert - Applying natural farming techniques in Africa,
an interview with Masanobu Fukuoka, by Robert and Diane Gilman