Rice Straw’s Roots
“I believe that a revolution can begin from this one strand of straw”.
“In the beginning, Rice Straw was created.”
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move…well, hopefully not. But, I appreciate Douglas Adams’ candor in the opening chapter of his book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I cannot fully explain what drove me to make a blog, but aim for it to bring readers introspection and curiosity on the topics discussed here. I think I am following the pace of the people I surround myself with and admire; looking for ways to slow down.
There seems to be a shift happening with our interactions on the internet. I know I am frequently exhausted by social media and opinion news. More often than not, it leaves me feeling highly anxious and angry. Right now, with the volatile reality we are existing in regarding domestic and foreign politics, conspiracy theorists, rapid infectious disease threats, misinformation, and dooms day climate disasters, I frequently think “I wish social media never existed. Look at all of the fear and distrust in our community that has come from it!”, but, that thought process is exactly what Douglas Adams was referencing. I can only assume social medias were created with the intention of bringing people together around the world to share their stories, feelings, and creativity, but, this seems like it is often far from the reality of modern media where fear mongering, judgment, and hate thrive.
Over the past few months, I have noticed people jumping ship from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter (I refuse to call it by its new name), and TikTok to move to more blog-format platforms like Substack and Medium. Even amongst my own group of friends, this format has become much more attractive and personal. It feels more intimate to read about what my friends are thinking during their day and dedicating their time to write about. Before creating this blog, I started to write letters to old friends (still am!) and even acquired in a typewriter to make the activity a learning experience and unplug from technology a bit. When I put the offer out there to my friends letting them know I was searching for my next pen pals, I received enormous interest. This made me realize that many people are feeling the same way I am with instant information and connection with the world at our fingertips; overwhelmed. There is something endearing about having to wait for a letter to hear about your friend’s life events, similar to that of developing film and hoping the shot came out okay. More often than not, it seems shrinking your world to what is immediately in front of you makes you feel far more connected than watching a live stream of a guy trying to record a “gotcha” video about how stupid Americas are compared to Europeans by asking strangers how many countries they can name in Africa.
With all of this in mind, I will go into a little detail about what I am planning to do with this blog. If you are still reading, thank you for being here.
Why is it named “Rice Straw”?
A somewhat quick background about me: In the later portion of the 2010s, I started working for an orchard called Ela Family Farms out of Hotchkiss, Colorado. This turned out to be a major catalyst in my life and transformed how I looked at food and interacted with my communities. I got my bachelor’s degree in human nutrition and dietetics while working two fairly different jobs; one at the Boulder County farmers markets with Ela Family Farms and one as a nutrition associate at a small 40 bed university hospital. I started volunteering my time weeding, learning, and doing general farm chores for a friend who had worked with me at Ela Family Farms but left to start their own beautiful, productive farm. I started contemplating getting a master’s degree after realizing the COVID-19 pandemic was about to cut off my opportunity to get into a dietetic internship, so, I applied and was accepted into an online Master of Public Health program at the Milken Institute of Public Health (GW). Why not put myself in more debt while a virus shuts down our economy, right?
While working on my thesis about indigenous food sovereignty and cultural food impacts, I managed to procure an internship with Dryland Agroecology Research in Longmont, Colorado; a non-profit and farm who manages land in a holistic, regenerative format and aim to reverse Colorado’s desertification. During my time with them, I started reading food anthropology research and multiple agriculture books including The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry, Restoration Agriculture by Mark Shepherd, and one book that my farmer friend mentioned to me which gave me a vivid “ah-ha” moment that tied all of my experiences, education, passions, and values together.
The book was about an ancient yet novel philosophy which is canonically named “natural farming” or 自然農法, shizen nōhō. That book is called The One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka.
Masanobu Fukuoka with fruiting rice. Reproduced from Natural Farming: Theory and Practice of Green Philosophy. Tōkyō: Jiji Press Publication
Fukuoka was an incredible inspiration to me as I read his flagship book, The One Straw Revolution. It was published in 1975 in Japan and was translated to English in 1978. Fukuoka goes over many theories, experiments, and philosophies on farming and how we interact with the world. In the English edition, Wendell Berry, who I also admire, wrote the preface saying:
“Readers who expect this to be a book only about farming will be surprised to find that it is also a book about diet, about health, about cultural values, about the limits of human knowledge. Others, led to it by hearsay of its philosophy, will be surprised to find it full of practical knowhow about growing rice and winter grain, citrus fruit, and garden vegetables on a Japanese farm.
It is exactly because of such habitual expectations—because we have learned to expect people to be specialists and books to have only one subject—that we are in need of The One-Straw Revolution. This book is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical. It is an inspiring, necessary book about agriculture because it is not just about agriculture.”
If you have been in the world of agriculture for any amount of time, the likelihood of you hearing about Wendell Berry and his advocacy for localized food systems and essays about the destructive nature of our industrialized food system is high. He has been writing about this topic long before I was born and still speaks about it today at the age of 90. Berry was a massive help to Fukuoka in getting his book to reach beyond the boarders of Japan and translated into dozens of different languages. If Berry appreciates and promotes a publication, it is significant. Though Fukuoka’s methods did not exactly manifest as identical copies of his farming practices around the world, many of his methods and philosophies were adopted and are still being practiced globally, including in the United States. Lundberg Family Farms for example, grows some of the highest quality rice to comes out of California that you can find in most grocery stores and is heavily impacted by Fukuoka’s visit to their farm during his worldly travels after his first book was published. Fukuoka’s visit to California was quite the shock for him seeing how industrialized agriculture was destroying our fertile soil and landscape (i.e. The Dust Bowl of 1930 in the U.S.). It prompted him to write another book called “Sowing Seeds in the Desert”.
Without spoiling the book too much, I encourage you read The One Straw Revolution and I look forward to discussing how it influenced me in more depth and hopefully influences you, but I will save that for another blog post. Fukuoka’s philosophy reminds me that our voices and actions do have purpose and impact. I would say Fukuoka sums up the inspiration of this blog in his opening chapter of The One Straw Revolution.
Look at This Grain.
“I believe that a revolution can begin from this one strand of straw. Seen at a glance, this rice straw may appear light and insignificant. Hardly anyone would believe that it could start a revolution. Nevertheless, I have come to realize the weight and power of this straw. For me, this revolution is very real.”
— Masanobu Fukuoka, The One Straw Revolution
What To Expect from Rice Straw
In summary, I want to express and share my creativity through writing, drawing, and photography in this blog that will be influenced by my daily interactions with life, nature, and my community. There will likely be topics about food, nutrition, tea, agriculture, ecology, public health (the field I work in), active transportation, bicycles, public lands, music, expression, science fiction, and Buddhism. I do not anticipate having something to say every week, but plan to have good discussions and thoughts to share when I do. With the philosophy of a single rice straw being able to start a revolution, I hope to build a community of fellow rice straw revolutionaries in this space and want it will break through the barriers of this blog and enters the physical world beyond me. If nothing happens, I will still have enjoyed the act of sharing my creativity and hope you share yours, too.
“For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.“
— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Really great essay! I love your voice.
I enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing!