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Larry Korn: One-Straw Messenger
Larry Korn was a 26-year-old farmhand from the United States living and working
at a communal farm in rural Kyoto in 1974 when he decided to go and see for
himself an enigmatic farmer-philosopher he had been hearing about through the
grapevine in Japan. Korn was met at the rice fields of the Fukuoka Shizen Noen
(Fukuoka Natural Farm) by the farm's middle-aged proprietor, Masanobu Fukuoka.
It was a meeting that would change both of their lives and alter the course of
small-scale farming the world over. Fukuoka, by that time, had not plowed his
rice fields for a quarter of a century, but was still producing healthy rice
crops that could compete with or exceed those of other local farmers in both
quality and quantity. Nor did he use any pesticides or artificial composting or
do any weeding. "Do-nothing" farming, he called it--following nature's lead and
leaving a minimal human imprint on the earth.
