"Nature Farming" was established in 1936 by Mokichi Okada, the founder of the Church of World Messianity, an agricultural system originally called "no fertilizer farming" (自然農法, shizen nōhō).
[1] Offshoots such as the Sekai Kyusei Kyo, promoting ‘Kyusei nature farming’, and the Mokichi Okada Association formed after his death to continue promoting the work in Japan and South-East Asia.
[2] ZZ2, a farming conglomerate in South Africa has translated the term to Afrikaans, "Natuurboerdery".
[3] According to the International Nature Farming Research Center in Nagano, Japan,[4] it is based on the theories that: The term is sometimes used for an alternative farming philosophy of Masanobu Fukuoka.
[5] This is generally translated in English as "Natural Farming" although agriculture researcher Hu-lian Xu claims that "nature farming" is the correct literal translation of the Japanese term.