Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Dig This
Friday, August 25, 2000
By Norman Akita, MOA
MOA member Roger Yamasaki shows off
a cluster of ginger root while Jody Kanemaru and
Tokio Shoda help with the harvest.
Gardening is a lot of things to a lot of people. It is a form of relaxation. It is a means to create beauty. It is a way to put food on a family's table. Farming for
a better worldThe 20th century Japanese philosopher Mokichi Okada saw gardening as all of those things. He also saw it as the way to save the world.
"Humans should take nature as their model in approaching any project," wrote Okada, whose philosophy encompassed medicine, art and horticulture. Since his death, Okada's followers have continued to build upon his message, which has spread from Japan to Hawaii and across the United States.
Nature farming was developed by Okada to repair the damage he saw being done to the earth and its inhabitants. He believed that soil health is the key to restoring a natural balance. "The soil element provides the basic element for plant growth. ... (It) can produce either good or bad effects on plants," he wrote.
While that may seem obvious, Okada further stipulated that healthy soil must be created and maintained using the natural elements of sun, soil and water and the plant matter they produce.
"We're out to prove that," said Ivan Kawamoto, the Mokichi Okada Association in Hawaii's point man on nature farming.
Unlike conventional organic farming, which allows the use of nonchemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, Nature Farming uses crop rotation and crop pairing almost exclusively to promote soil health and discourage pests.
MOA Hawaii runs a two-acre farm on the University of Hawaii experimental agriculture plot in Waimanalo. A flower garden greets visitors on the way to eight plots of food crops and green manure. Green manure is vegetation grown to enrich the soil. Compost can serve this purpose for the home gardener, said Kawamoto, as tilling under an entire crop is difficult without heavy equipment.
MOA is experimenting with different food crops. In its current rotation, eggplant grows alongside sorghum, which provides windbreak and shade, as well as green manure. It also seems to create a home for beneficial insects, reducing mite damage in the process.
Macuna beans were recently harvested from a field in which sorghum provided both green manure and a natural trellis for the beans. A healthy looking crop of soy beans is coming up in that spot now. Macuna also breaks up the hard pan, leaving nice, loose soil.
In another field, the bright yellow flowers of crotalaria signal time to till under this nitrogen-rich green manure crop. The most nitrogen is available when the plant is at full flower, said Kawamoto. Tilling later would cause the plant to put the nitrogen to work in seed production.
"I guess the biggest success to date is the ginger project," said Kawamoto. In the ginger plot, green onions are planted and harvested with the root crop. An odor from the onion root tips keeps disease at bay. The ginger experiment is entering its second year. "After this year, if the crop is still successful, we'll take the technology out to the growers," said Kawamoto.
The Waimanalo farm, being part of a state research site, cannot be used to generate revenue, so the next step in the MOA experiment is to find a commercial farm site, said Kawamoto. "We need to test that aspect, can we make money?"
Hector Valenzuela, vegetable specialist with the University of Hawaii, believess that's an important question for MOA to answer. However, he said nature farming already has a lot to teach the home gardener.
Crop rotation and diversity, and increasing organic matter in soil are useful ideas, he said.
Ranjit Cooray, educational specialist for Lyon Arboretum, agreed.
"For back-yard gardening it's really the ideal," he said.
Nature farming details the importance of integrating soil and pest management, said Cooray, who has often asked Kawamoto to teach at the arboretum.
And for Cooray, the proof is in the results. He recalled a farm fair at MOA's Nuuanu headquarters: "People from different places brought their produce and it was fabulous. Really beautiful stuff."
Research is still in progress on the nutritional properties of nature farmed food, but initial indications are promising. MOAs vegetables seem to have two to three times the normal level of antioxidants, said Kawamoto.
If this fact is borne out, Mokichi Okada certainly would not have been surprised.
"Our objective at MOA is to create healthy people" and by extension a healthy society, said Kawamoto.
The MOA way
What: Ivan Kawamoto on Nature Farming
Gardening Calendar in Do It Electric!
Stephanie Kendrick's gardening column runs Fridays in Today.
You can write her at the Star-Bulletin, P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802
or email skendrick@starbulletin.com
