The History of Organic Farming

• Rudolf Steiner delivered a series of eight lectures to a group of farmers in Austria in 1924. These lectures defined biodynamic agriculture and the Demeter symbol was created in 1927 to identify foods grown by these methods.

• Lady Eve Balfour was inspired by the work of Sir Albert Howard (on composting and agricultural health) and Sir Robert Mc Carrison (on diet and human health), both working in India. She started the Haughley Experiment on her farm in Suffolk researching the links between the health of soil, plants and animals within different closed systems. Based on this work she wrote The Living Soil in 1943 – the book that stimulated the founding of the Soil Association in 1946.

• Also in the ’40s, Hans and Maria Müller together with Hans-Peter Rusch developed a natural approach to farming and soil fertility in Switzerland particularly using rock dusts.

However, JI Rodale in the USA actually coined the term ‘organic’ in 1942 when he started publishing the magazine Organic Gardening.

Despite their differences these founding strands shared an underlying basis:

• The concept of the farm as a living organism, an integrated whole.

• The concept of a living soil as the basis of health right up the food chain.

• The whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

So although organic farming involves and develops simple traditional agricultural practices, it is very different and involves a great deal more. Organic farming is not necessarily a low input system, as it aims to maximize the farm’s own inputs. As few inputs as possible from outside the farm are used.