Disclaimer: These are my personal views and do not represent any organization or professional advice.
Thu, 15 Jan 2026 15:46:06 +0200
Natural Farming
Natural Farming is farming without a system or human knowledge. More accurately put it is to do nothing. The discerning and isolating mind of man is put away and Nature is seen as the perfect and indivisible whole rather than the sum of many parts. In breaking up Nature into a million tiny specialized parts and studying each incessantly, science believes that by later combining them, something of the whole will be known. But, Man, being inside of Nature cannot understand it. In order to understand, he would need to be on the outside.
Pests, weeds and diseases do not exist in Nature. Nor are there monocultures, irrigation hoses or evenly spaced rows. Problems and their solutions are absent. There is no lack and there is no such thing as yield. These are all constructs of a calculating intellect.
Everything is in a state of constant motion on an infinite number of timescales and so interconnected it is impossible to know the consequences of even the smallest of actions. There are too many variables both known and unknown. Even the tiniest microorganism belongs to an infinitely complex web of cause and effect. Pick a snail off a plant and the whole world is necessarily affected, just as a butterfly flapping its wings causes a hurricane to later form on the other side of the earth.
Look at ancient old-growth forests like those found in California. Everything coexists in diverse harmony without artificial irrigation, turning over of the soil, application of fertilizer or elimination of bacteria, pests and weeds. Trees grow in a multi level canopy without pruning or shaping and the tallest of them reach great heights. These forests are home to life at every scale and live seemingly forever without knowledge or science.
Despite being aware of this, Man persists in discriminating, classifying and acting according to his intellect. This is this and that is that. Bug A possibly affects X in plant B. Plant C most probably needs mineral A, B and C. Fungus A almost certainly causes spots on plant D. We call this incomplete collection of accumulated and isolated assumptions, knowledge. From each assumption problems are derived and for each problem products are created to solve them. Pesticide A kills bug B. Herbicide D kills plants X, Y and Z. Fertilizer M solves deficiencies in mineral E. The list goes on.
Each solution is created in isolation. The pesticide eradicates its designated pest as effectively as possible and no thought is given as to its effect on people, other life or the environment. And because no thought is given to the whole and only to its isolated parts, each solution is as heavy handed as possible. Ill-informed actions have consequences which have consequences which have consequences. In attempting to solve one problem an unknowable number of new problems are created which then must be solved ad infinitum.
When science is applied to farming, Nature becomes the enemy and an unpredictable force which opposes all efforts. Man and Nature become incompatible, since from his perspective the haphazard natural landscape is chaotic and must be made orderly and from Nature's perspective, evenly spaced, straight, parallel and perpendicular lines constitute chaos and must in turn be reclaimed. Ultimately, Nature's order trumps Man's chaos.
This incompatibility over time degrades the Earth and in the end creates artificial desert environments where nothing lives, nothing grows and it never rains. Farming these lands becomes wholly dependent on poisons, chemicals, other artificial products and an unfathomable amount of water. In this environment farming is an unsustainable and an unrelenting struggle.
By removing the natural vegetation and turning over the soil the delicate balance of life within it is exposed to the elements, baking in the sun and blown and washed away by the wind and rain. Insects, worms, microorganisms, fungi and everything else in and above the soil are destroyed. The soil hardens, water fails to penetrate it and plants struggle to grow. The solution to these problems is to again turn over the soil. Repeated enough times, a desert is formed. This is akin to caffeine which creates problems only more caffeine can solve.
The desert doesn't exist for lack of rain it exists for lack of life. Trees cause the rain and not rain the trees. When trees and plants are removed from a place the rain is removed along with them. The rain falls where it is needed, it falls on life. When there is no life there is no rain, and there is no rain for there is no need. Desertification on a large scale bares mountain tops, denudes plains and dries rivers all the way to the sea.
The only thing Man cares about is perpetual increase of yields and he stops at nothing to attain it. Destruction of Nature and poisoning of all life mere casualties along the way. Exploitation and separation from Nature continuing until there is nothing left. Weak, genetically modified plants grown without soil in sterile, temperature controlled buildings and under artificial light; sprayed with chemicals and tube fed synthetic nutrients and water. And this, celebrated as a great success.
As a consequence of chasing yields, diversity in Man's diet has been reduced to a non-seasonal selection of high-yield crops that are commercially viable to grow, store and transport. Of the 30,000 edible plant species that are known, only 10 (corn, wheat, rice, soybean, sugarcane, potato, cassava, oil palm, barley, sorghum) make up the majority of the industrial food system and a mere 150 are cultivated at notable scale. In the wide destruction of Nature, seasonally foraged wild plants once a large part of Man's diet have been totally forgotten or else redefined as weeds and pests.
Humanity must return to Nature and to living under her wing. Farming with Nature is addition rather than subtraction or replacement. It is to add value over time. It is to do no harm. Rather than creating lifeless deserts, forests should be birthed feeding countless generations and sustaining themselves for thousands of years. Man is the salt of the Earth. That is to say, Man enhances or betters whatever he touches and man as salt must regain his savor.
Natural Farming is simply the abandonment of incomplete human knowledge for the placement of faith in Nature. Natural Farming is to do nothing.
—Dylan Araps
Addendum
Of course, with the global population at over 8 billion and the task of feeding everyone consolidated to large, multinational corporations this is not achievable at scale. In order for this to be possible and for man to return to balance with Nature, the entire world must necessarily change.
That being said, the insurmountability of this problem is precisely why Natural Farming should be attempted, taught and practiced at large.