Alan Sensei recently returned from a trip to Turkey where he and rural farmers of Samson worked together to begin growing chemical free rice using the Natural Agriculture method. The process began by working to bring the farmers and consumers together. A bus was organized to bring the consumers from the city of Samson into the rural area. They traveled to one of the largest local farms where the farmer had just, one year prior, began growing rice using the Natural Agriculture method. The farmer was very impressed by the difference in the rice since the life force in the rice was much stronger than he had seen in his past crops since 1963. He showed the consumers the rice and explained the difference he saw. Even a local neighboring farmer came over to see what was going on with all the people visiting the farm. When a farmer changes to not using chemicals after using them many years, at first the crop yield is less. Now that the consumers can buy directly from the farmers at the same retail cost the farmer is able to make a higher profit than selling to a wholesaler which allows him to make it through the beginning process. This way both farmer and consumer can also contribute to the environment by not using chemicals and the consumer can participate in being an activist to help protect the environment.
The consumers showed their appreciation to the farmers which gave the farmers a lot of joy. It was also good for the farmers to see the different types of consumers who attended. This fall they will all join together again, celebrate with a meal and spread the message to other farmers and consumers.
Alan Sensei also visited a school he had been to 2 years before. They had started a Natural Agriculture garden last time he was there. He noticed two big differences since his last visit.
1) The school had became much cleaner and very beautiful.
2) The garden project became a very important part of the students activities as well as the
teachers.
The garden project helped create thought and talk about environmental issues for the students which even effected their parents. Shumei donated a projector to the school and through working with the agriculture garden the students came up with an idea and created a wonderful presentation on global warming.
So another wonderful trip to Turkey was had by all!
