The Cost Of Wisdom By Masumoto

Masumoto, a Japanese peach farmer, brings up a point on page 30 of Epitaph for a Peach that when read and pondered upon makes absolute sense. What he states can be deduced by common sense alone; however, it is amazing how this wisdom is disregarded by many in modern agriculture. Paying to contaminate the very resources that mother nature so kindly provides to grow healthy, nutritious crops is against Masumoto’s “motto” when it comes to farming. He believes in using sustainable practices, treating his fields as a canvass on which he paints with cover crops, carefully crafting beneficial micro-ecosystems. Through this practice, not only does he save his profits by passing on modern pesticides and fertilizers, but he also creates a sustainable environment, eradicating soil degradation, hazardous run-offs, and much more. …show more content…
The wisdom written by Masumoto is directly relatable to the present, for unaccountable costs, called externalities, are being examined and are considered the cause of environment degradation. Externalities are “costs” in which no one is held accountable (air pollution, water contamination, etc.) and they are the focus of creating a sustainable future. While the theory of these costs can get rather contemplated, being examined in scholarly journals, Masumoto states it very simply in his memoir. He does not use progress-stalling jargon; he states the facts. Sterility is such a concern that the human population has found very effective ways to generate it, but they have not found safe ways to generate it; therefore, the question arises, “Should modern agriculture simply