One Straw Revolution is an important read because it is not just a book about farming, it is an analysis of the human condition and the perils facing an increasingly technological and globalized world. Masanobu Fukuoka uses farming to exemplify the problems we are creating for ourselves. He notes, “but all I have been doing, farming out here in the country, is trying to show that humanity knows nothing” (Fukuoka, 19). Technology is seen as a tool to make our lives easier, but as the world gets more and more entrenched in the constant use of technology and the constant need to have more and more of it, it becomes more of a burden on our lives than a tool to make our lives better.
Technology and technological development is vital to the current industrial agricultural system. Instead of looking for natural solutions to problems, technology is used to ‘solve’ problems and thus makes even more problems that new technology is needed to ‘solve’. Agriculture and agricultural technology has become a constantly revolving door of problems and solutions that lead to new problems. Fukuoka’s “do less” approach to farming highlights how agricultural technology has shifted from an aid to a burden on farmers. Industrial agriculture farmers have become inextricably tied to the technology that the system demands. They work tirelessly and pour increasingly more money into these technologies for modest outcomes and profits. Fukuoka stresses the need for us to see systems as a whole, and be able to recognize when technology is not a benefit but a burden.
A class I took explored the current agricultural system and how it is draining farmers and creating wealth for large companies. We saw how with the rise of increasingly more complex GMO, fertilizer, and pesticide technology, large agri-business companies are profiting while the farmers suffer. GMO seeds can be created to be resistant to certain pests and have higher yields, but the farmer must buy new seeds every season, and the various associated sprays and technologies to go along with it to get the desired results. They pour money into these new seeds, fertilizers, sprays, and the pockets of GMO companies like Monsanto, and yet Fukuoka sees similar yields with much less monetary and labor input. With low food prices and the high cost of seemingly necessary agriculture technologies, industrial agriculture farming is not longer a feasible means of income. As a result, increasingly fewer farmers own increasingly large monoculture farms.
