Road back to nature

Author of the highly acclaimed The One-Straw Revolution and the Natural Way of Farming: The Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy, Masanobu Fukuoka has already earned wide respect among advocates of sustainable agriculture for his coherent vision of man's proper role in na ture and his unique approach to farming.

Over the past several years, as his ideas have caught increasing atten tion outside his native Japan, Fukuoka has turned to address such critical global issues as ecologically destructive farming practices, desertification and deforestation.

In this collection of articles, lectures and essays, Fukuoka records for the first time his impressions and observations during those travels. Like a detective solving an ancient crime, he traces man's role in the creation of vast deserts and barren lands where fertile plains and forests once layand proposes ways to reverse this tide of ecological devastation before it is too late. He recounts also how he developed a superhigh-yielding variety of rice, and his incredulity and despair at the petty international seed politics that prevent the use of this miracle grain where it could do the most good. And he goes on to lucidly demonstrate the interdepen dence of nature, God, and man.