However, I believe you are limiting your scope of thought by considering crop yield per unit of land as a measure of success.
Fukuoka by contrast considered the bigger picture, mainly the cost and reliability (ie. overall risk introduced by) all inputs to the agricultural process, but also the quality of the resulting crop. In his particular case, in a situation in which labour-intensive traditional Japanese agricultural processes were being replaced by western machinery, fertilizer and pesticide companies, he achieved excellent fruit yields with greater self-sufficiency, less risk and less effort than competing approaches. He also found that consumers appreciated his crops more, finding them tastier (qualitative improvement) and offering to pay higher prices.
You are of course correct that pruning is necessary for some types of crops, however Fukuoka worked primarily with fruit trees on his family farm and in his principles stated only that pruning was unnecessary for fruit tree agriculture, ie. this is a straw man argument.
Your final incitement to a mindset of dismission is unenlightened.
Do keep in mind that food prices are murderously high in Japan, which is a very real problem for low-income families.
One single apple at my local supermarket is $2 and up. A head of flavorless lettuce costs the same. The Japanese equivalent to "beans and rice" is instant noodles, because both rice and legumes of any kind are pricy.
It gets better outside of major cities, but food prices here are insane.
Fukuoka lived in postwar rural Japan, not post-bubble modern Japan. It's very true the economy is different. However, this fact really reinforces his point that depending on money to acquire inputs to your agricultural process is a big risk and unneeded complexity for the small scale farmer... hence, his success and book.
However, I believe you are limiting your scope of thought by considering crop yield per unit of land as a measure of success.
Fukuoka by contrast considered the bigger picture, mainly the cost and reliability (ie. overall risk introduced by) all inputs to the agricultural process, but also the quality of the resulting crop. In his particular case, in a situation in which labour-intensive traditional Japanese agricultural processes were being replaced by western machinery, fertilizer and pesticide companies, he achieved excellent fruit yields with greater self-sufficiency, less risk and less effort than competing approaches. He also found that consumers appreciated his crops more, finding them tastier (qualitative improvement) and offering to pay higher prices.
You are of course correct that pruning is necessary for some types of crops, however Fukuoka worked primarily with fruit trees on his family farm and in his principles stated only that pruning was unnecessary for fruit tree agriculture, ie. this is a straw man argument.
Your final incitement to a mindset of dismission is unenlightened.