Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea, and Japan
Product Description
Professor King provides intriguing glimpses of Japan, China, Manchuria, and Korea, with information about the customs of the common people; utilization of waste; methods of irrigation, reforestation, and land reclamation; and the cultivation of rice, silk, and tea. An invaluable, profusely illustrated resource for organic gardeners, farmers, and conservationists. 249 illustrations.
… More >>
Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea, and Japan
A wonderful book, despite its having been originally written more than 100 years ago. Fresh and sobering look at what it takes to make a civilized society run on a daily basis without modern technology, from food production to how to make cotton mattresses by hand, to manufacturing coal based blocks for home heating and cooking – in a backyard; and how to build a k’ang, a raised heated platform used for sitting and sleeping.
‘Farmers’ also gives an idea of the human cost and effort needed to keep land fertile and productive, conserve scarce resources, and the ingenuity required daily to have a reasonably comfortable, sustainable lifestyle over many hundreds of generations – a workable world one can confidently pass on to one’s descendents, something we DON’T have, for all our vaunted “quality of life” in the US.
This book was referred to reverently by the author of “The Wheel of Health”, a book about the Hunza people who are famed for their health and longevity, so naturally I had to read the farming book. It describes in a fair amount of detail the several thousand year-old practices of several Asian cultures for successfully maintaining the health of their soil. While these practices are culture-wide, a single farmer could do much of it on his own farm or multiple farms as a community practice in order to pool composting resources. What’s odd is that those countries in “Farmers of Forty Centuries” have been able to feed large numbers of people using the methods outlined in this book, yet they have recently been turning away from those tried and true methods in favor of European and American farming methods, both of whose methods have impoverished their soils. There must have been a great sales pitch, pressure from supposedly knowing university studies along with inward cultural pressures to become “modern”. They don’t realize what an amazing feat they’ve been accomplishing in keeping their soils healthy for so long.
Along with this book I would highly recommend all of Masanobu Fukuoka’s books on farming (if you can find them), especially “Natural Farming”, which outlines his methods. “The Wheel of health: The Sources of Long Life and health Among the Hunza” is valuable for their farming and life practices that make them so long-lived and healthy right up to the end with both personal and national applications. For a fresh and humorous approach to night soil composting, check out “The Humanure Handbook: A Guide To Composting Human Manure”, which outlines how to use human waste to recharge the soil rather than wasting it in cess tanks and polluting our ground water with it. Although this would only work for warm climates year-round, it certainly follows the spirit of Farmers of Forty Centuries and would be do-able in the warm months in colder climates. (Maybe worth a university study to observe pathogen behavior in humanure compost?) Also, for farmers in or near a desert environment, check out Geoff Lawton’s video on [...] about how to green the desert -yes he’s actually doing it and teaches others how, especially important in areas of the USA where farming and other usage is draining the Oglala aquifer. [...]
This book is one of the influences on Bill Mollison, of Permaculture fame.
It is the record of a fact-finding mission, and describes how East Asia fed itself sustainably for “forty centuries”. The original idea was to take home lessons for American farmers, but the agronomy King describes is highly intensive and uses huge inputs of human labour.
As custodian of a bit of rural land, with an abiding interest in sustainable agronomies, I found it a good and interesting read.
The principal take-home lesson for me is that land can be managed for human sustenance, on very long time-scales, without large inputs of external resources, and without the steady degradation suffered by other landscapes.
That’s a lesson worth learning, even if we can’t apply the detail of the traditional East Asian methods in other times and places.
These Asian farmers were accomplishing something eons ago that the new Permaculture movement is striving for now. Why did things ever change? Big Chemical Demons stepped in and turned things around for a profit and our government has allowed it to grow till we are all poisoned by the air we breathe to the water we drink, to the food we eat. It is time to step back…
When you read the simplistic yet exacting ways that the earliest of farmers in Asian countries grew food and raised their meat/milk animals it is amazing. Everyone worked together to accomplish great things. Hard work was the norm and realized as a necessity to survival. In our day and age, it is just the opposite as man strives to get out of working hard for his “daily bread”. Shame! Shame! Shame!
This book is for anyone interested in Permaculture, organic gardening, and sustainable living. After you read it all will make sense and you might just get on the bandwagon and help stop the chemical onslaught we are all exposed to on a daily basis.
Read and learn…
As the publisher of yowusa.com, I’m always on the lookout for solid books with something to offer who have to rebuild after a catastrophe. This book was recommended to me by one of my Cut to the Chase radio guests and it is a treasure trove of knowledge.