chemistry

Nature Farming

Nature Farming is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Nature Farming rather than just read about it. In short: Nature Farming (自然農法, shizen nōhō) is an organic agricultural system established in 1936 by Mokichi Okada, the founder of the Church of World Messianity. It was also originally known as "no fertilizer farming".

Key takeaways

Nature Farming belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Nature Farming to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Nature Farming from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Nature Farming (自然農法, shizen nōhō) is an organic agricultural system established in 1936 by Mokichi Okada, the founder of the Church of World Messianity. It was also originally known as "no fertilizer farming". Offshoots such as the Sekai Kyusei Kyo, promoting ‘Kyusei nature farming’, and the Mokichi Okada Association formed after his death to continue promoting Nature Farming in Japan and Southeast Asia. ZZ2, a farming conglomerate in South Africa has translated the term to Afrikaans, "Natuurboerdery". According to the International Nature Farming Research Center in Nagano, Japan, it is based on the theories that:

Fertilizers pollute the soil and weaken its power of production. Pests would break out from the excessive use of fertilizers The difference in disease incidence between resistant and susceptible plants is attributed to nutritional conditions inside the body. Vegetables and fruits produced by nature farming taste better than those by chemical farming. The term is sometimes used for an alternative farming philosophy of Masanobu Fukuoka.

Natural Farming

Another Japanese farmer and philosopher, Masanobu Fukuoka, conceived of an alternative farming system in the 1930s separately from Okada and used the same Japanese characters to describe it. This is generally translated in English as "Natural Farming" although agriculture researcher Hu-lian Xu claims that "nature farming" is the correct literal translation of the Japanese term.

See also No-dig gardening No-till farming

Bibliography Okada, Mokichi. 1951. 自然農法解說 / Shizen nōhō kaisetsu. Tōkyō: 榮光社出版部 / Eikōsha Shuppanbu.

References

External links Official website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Nature Farming

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Nature Farming claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Nature Farming before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Nature Farming ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Nature Farming

In research: Nature Farming appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Nature Farming in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Nature Farming is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Agriculture and the environment, Agriculture stubs, Church of World Messianity, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Nature Farming outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Nature Farming in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Nature Farming means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Nature Farming out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Nature Farming in simple terms?

Why does Nature Farming matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Nature Farming?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Nature Farming.