The only sensible approach to disease and insect control, I think, is to grow sturdy crops in a healthy environment.

I started natural farming after the war with just one small plot, but gradually I acquired additional acreage by taking over surrounding pieces of abandoned land and caring for them by hand.

Of course, I have made mistakes . . . just as every grower does. However, I never really think of them as mistakes!

Many people think that when we practice agriculture, nature is helping us in our efforts to grow food. This is an exclusively human-centered viewpoint... we should instead, realize that we are receiving that which nature decides to give us. A farmer does not grow something in the sense that he or she creates it. That human is only a small part of the whole process by which nature expresses its being. The farmer has very little influence over that process... other than being there and doing his or her small part.

One of the most important discoveries I made in those early years was that to succeed at natural farming, you have to get rid of your expectations. Such "products" of the mind are often incorrect or unrealistic . . . and can lead you to think you've made a mistake if they're not met.

The healing of the land and the purification of the human spirit is the same process.

The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.