4000 years of organic farming

07:12pm, Wednesday 12 February 2025

At the beginning of the 20th century Franklin Hiram King, a former official of the US Department of Agriculture, travelled to China, Japan and Korea to investigate their farming methods. What he found was amazing - despite land cultivation over thousands of years the land was still fertile and productive. As he put it in his book Farmers of Forty Centuries:

″We had gone from practices by which three generations had exhausted strong virgin fields and were coming to others still fertile after centuries of cropping.″

This was because of the scrupulous attention of these earlier Asian farmers to adding nourishment back to the soil such as animal and human manure, leaves, straw, canal sludge, ashes, and green manure. There was zero waste in the true sense of the word - absolutely everything was saved and turned to productive use - including even the thatched roofs and earthen bricks of worn out dwellings. Without electricity, human and animal labour was the main source of energy in the farm and they also ingeniously fashioned labour-saving implements such as hand tools, pipes, drills, pulleys, baskets and barrows. These peasant farmers understood the importance of cultivating soil microbes - they used fermentation techniques and inoculated soils with other soils from different places, cultivated plants that added nitrogen to the soil, rotated crops, trellised and intercropped. Their knowledge, which had been passed down through the generations, is now being repackaged and turned into businesses by entrepreneurs in todays organic farming industry.

King was struck over and over again by the industry, efficiency and intelligence of the Asian peasants he observed.

″This marvellous heritage of economy, industry and thrift bred of the stress of centuries, must not be permitted to lose virility through contact with Western wasteful practices, now exalted to seeming virtues through the dazzling brilliancy of mechanical achievements.″

However enchantment with the brilliancy of mechanical achievements is not confined to Western countries. After going through the industrial revolution long before other countries, many movements in the West rose up that revolted against excessive materialism including the Luddites and Arts and Crafts movement of the 19th century, and the hippies of the 20th. However, materialism and technology still dominate Western culture and in Asia, where urbanisation is still relatively new, this is even more the case. Young Asians who grow up in urban apartment blocks and buy all their food from convenience stores and supermarkets have no practical knowledge of living off the land and are unlikely to romanticise experiences such as those described by King.

Inspired by his book I, however, have been struck by the abundance we have lying all around us in the fallen leaves at Faasai Resort and at our White Water Lake farm. So I have been busy raking up leaves and manure and pond sludge at the farm to return nutrients to the soil. Some is used as mulch around the trees and some is turned into compost to cultivate more microbes that can quickly break down and feed the soil. Not only will we enjoy tasting the results but this kind of regenerative farming will hopefully preserve and enhance the soil for future generations.