Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

The Organic Farming Movement: Trailblazers, Heroes and Pioneers
(From Summer 2001)
http://www.organicanews.com/news/article.cfm?story_id=170
by David Kupfer

The Organic Farming Movement: Trailblazers, Heroes and Pioneers In late
December of 2000 the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced final
adoption of the first standards the federal government has ever imposed for
the labeling and processing of organic foods. The new standards ban the use
of irradiation, biotechnology and sewage-sludge fertilizer for any food
product labeled organic. When the department introduced proposed regulation
in 1997, all three of these methods were permitted. After nearly 300,000
people wrote letters of protest opposing their inclusion, the department
withdrew that proposal and started again.

Also banned is the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers in organic
food crops, as well as the use of antibiotics in all meat labeled organic.
While the Bush administration could try to overturn the rule (which does
not become fully effective until 2002), there is little such expectation,
considering the high level of public support and vitality of organic sales.

The organic farming movement and organic foods industry have been growing
at a remarkable rate in recent years. Sales of organic commodities in
natural food stores approached $3.3 billion in 1998, compared with $2.08
billion in 1995, according to industry sources. Sales of organic products
in conventional supermarkets are also rising. Industry experts expect the
current average annual growth rate of 20-24 percent for organic food sales
to continue over the next decade. Such growth is profoundly transforming
the organic foods industry, and the implementation of the USDA's recently
adopted national organic program is furthering this momentum.

Indeed, the new federal standards are impacting the form, function and
scale of organic farming in America. In the U.S., organic farming
represents the fastest growing sector of the agriculture economy. In 1999,
the country's second-largest conventional lettuce grower (Tanimura and
Antle) and the U.S.'s largest organic vegetable shipper (Natural Selection
Foods, marketer of the Earthbound Farm brand) became partners in supplying
organic lettuce to large chain supermarkets. One of the finest emblems of
the 1960's hippie subculture has come of age. Organics have become big
business.

The Early Trailblazers

A few individuals served as catalysts in the transition toward a more
sustaining, permanent, chemical-poison-free agriculture, providing both the
academic and experiential basis for what is now a global movement, a
growing economic force worldwide, and a way of life for organic farmers.
These innovators offered the technical and philosophical backdrop for the
mainstreaming of organic foods and farming that occurred when the flower
children's "back to nature" movement converged with the broader,
anti-pesticide, anti-war, anti-agribusiness sentiment so characteristic of
the youth movement of the 1960s and 70s.

In the early 1900s, Sir Albert Howard, a British colonial officer with the
lengthy title of Chemical Botanist to the Government of the Raj at Pusa in
India, carried out a variety of noted agricultural experiments. The area of
India where he worked was so poor that local farmers could not afford to
buy fertilizers imported from other areas. Observing the reaction of
properly grown varieties of plants subjected to insects and other pests,
Howard found the primary factor in soil management was a consistent supply
of fresh humus prepared with vegetable and animal wastes, and that
maintaining soil fertility was the fundamental basis for its health. He
felt that crops grown on land treated in such a way resisted the pests that
were rife in the region, and that this resistance was passed onto the
livestock when they were fed on such crops. He believed it was better to
adapt a species to local conditions through breeding, rather than to force
a western strain to grow there by using chemicals.

Howard essentially reinvented the compost pile and propagated methods to
best use the natural resources of India. He studied the root systems of
plants which had been largely ignored by botanists, discovered the
mycorrhizae fungi symbiotic relationship with some plant roots, and
especially eschewed the fragmented approach of current agriculture research
which separates soil, crops, livestock and humans.

In his landmark 1940 book, An Agriculture Testament, he argued that relying
on artificial fertilizers was unwise, as it could not maintain and
perpetuate farmland indefinitely. Though he had many adherents, some of his
research was flawed, and he was at the time widely ignored by the
mainstream. An extraordinary scientist, Howard's many advances for the
cause of organic agriculture caused him to be considered the founder of the
modern organic movement.

Another organic pioneer, Rudolf Steiner, introduced the tenets of
Anthroposophy, which combined science with philosophy and spirituality.
Steiner gave a series of lectures on the subject of agriculture from his
Anthroposophic perspective. His whole systems approach to farming coupled
spiritual concepts with practical ones, and his lectures, compiled in his
1924 book Agriculture, were the basis for forms of agriculture called
Biodynamics. While some of the applied techniques of biodynamics, such as
the widely adopted biodynamic composting techniques, have had a profound
impact on the evolution and character of organic farming, much of its
philosophy demanding dedicated spiritual commitment has not caught on with
organic farmers in the U.S. However, throughout Europe, particularly in
Germany, there are thousands of biodynamic farms and biodynamic products
commercially available.

U.S. Pioneers

While Henry Wallace is remembered more as the Vice President under Franklin
D. Roosevelt during World War II, and Progressive Party candidate for
President in 1948, he possessed a deep passion for land and ecology.
Serving as Secretary of Agriculture from 1933 to 1940, he was at the helm
of the USDA commitment to health, conservation and soil restoration.
Wallace began as USDA chief while one of the worst ecological disasters in
the nation's history, the Dust Bowl, was raging. Caused by prolonged
drought in the early 1930s, 1934 alone saw more than 300 million tons of
precious topsoil blow away.

The Soil Conservation Service was established under him in 1935 with the
primary aim, according to Wallace, "to conserve fertility, prevent soil
erosion and promote good land use." He was especially concerned that —
unlike all other aspects of the nation's economic life such as labor and
capital — the "voiceless land" could not speak for itself. Though few
shared his views at the time, Wallace favored natural resource planning on
a national scale, with decisions based on conservation and long-term social
values rather than on market prices. Fortunately, many of Wallace's
conservation concerns were integrated into federal government policy for
lasting value to the soil.

As Head of Soils for the University of Missouri, William Albrecht
(1888-1974) was a leading promoter of the idea that improving the soil by
fertilization and increasing the organic matter improved the nutritive
value of forage. His extensive experiments with growing plants and animals
substantiated his observations that a declining soil fertility (due to a
lack of organic material, major elements and trace minerals) was
responsible for poor crops, and in turn, for pathological conditions of
animals (including humans) fed deficient foods from such soils.

In the 1930s, a "back to the land" movement, known then as the "Country
Life Movement," began in which city dwellers chose to move to the country
in favor of a simpler life. Perhaps the best remembered and most
influential leader of that movement is author Louis Bromfield, who hailed
the "new agriculture developing slowly in America for the past 30 years,"
wherein "observant and intelligent farmers, school teachers, bureau or
academic men, men and women in back gardens or an acre or two have been
watching their soil, living with it, feeling it under their feet, learning
from it."

One of the most successful American authors of his time, Bromfield received
a Pulitzer Prize in 1927, at the age of 31, for his acclaimed novel Early
Autumn. In the 1930s, he was a wealthy expatriate living in France, writing
such novels as his fictional family biography, The Farm. Tired of life in
Europe and sensing the upcoming conflict, Bromfield returned to his native
Ohio in 1939 and used his wealth and interest in agriculture to create
Malabar Farm, named for the coast in India, which became the most widely
known experimental farm in America.

Over the next 20 years, Bromfield wrote a series of five books which
poetically documented his work at Malabar Farm and captured the love and
rapture that can come from farming in harmony with nature. Demonstrating to
neighboring farmers (sometimes thousands at a time) how traditional
agriculture practices, crop rotations, livestock manures and old fashioned
care for the land could restore worn-out soil and build healthy productive
farms, Bromfield was an eloquent advocate and spokesperson for the organic
farming movement.

Also from this era, self-labeled experimental farmer, utopian social critic
and best-selling author Edward Faulkner is remembered for his 1943 book
Plowman's Folly, and for his ideas about permanent agriculture. He put
forth a timely critique of current farming practices and the negative
applications of science and technology, while presenting solutions rooted
on ecologically based husbandry that stressed societal permanence as a
goal.

Faulkner attacked the tradition in America of abusing soil through the
continual use of the moldboard plow as a tool for soil preparation. He
devised a plan to heal the earth from past abuses through a concept he
called "trash farming" or "trash mulch culture." Faulkner's proposition was
to incorporate large amounts of organic material (weeds, crop residues,
green manures) into the soil to rebuild it much as ancient peasant
agricultural societies had done for centuries. His theories about trash
farming and social change represented a bold shift in U.S. agricultural
practices towards greater stewardship and ecological accountability, and
were broadly circulated and discussed by prominent national figures and
ordinary citizens. The moldboard plow that he decried has completely
vanished from American farming.

Rodale's Legacy

Perhaps the most influential individual who impacted the movement back
toward organic farming in the 20th century was J.I. Rodale, who came to the
field without any agricultural experience or training. Heavily influenced
by Sir Albert Howard's book An Agricultural Testament, Rodale rebelled
against chemical agriculture by writing about and discussing organics. In
1940, he purchased a 60-acre experimental organic farm near Emmaus,
Pennsylvania, to demonstrate his ideas. Also in 1940, Austrian biochemist
Ehrenfried Pfeiffer fled the Nazi regime and, settling in Kimberton,
Pennsylvania, established the Kimberton Farm School, a biodynamic model
farm. Pfieffer became a protégé of Rudolf Steiner in 1921, and
Kimberton Farm is where many early organic farmers learned their craft.

Rodale first used the word "organic" to describe the natural method of
gardening and farming, mainly because compost, humus and the organic
fraction of the soil were emphasized so strongly. In 1942 he began
publishing the magazine Organic Gardening and Farming, declaring that
organic methods were more than just a way to husband the soil and grow
plants and animals. He proclaimed that to be "organic" was more than just a
way to know and understand the lessons of nature in all ways, and to use
that knowledge to evaluate all of the "blessings" of science and
technology.

What good was it, he asked, to grow food without using chemical fertilizers
or pesticides, and then to process that food so that vitamin and mineral
content would be seriously depleted? Not caring if he was labeled an
extremist or crackpot, Rodale created what might be called a "strict
constructionist" interpretation of natural life under the banner of
organiculture. If it is synthetic, avoid it, he said. If it goes through a
factory, examine it with special care. Follow the dictates of the cycle of
life when growing things, he advised, and you will be blessed with foods of
surpas- sing taste and quality that are less troubled by insects or
disease. Rodale Press went on to become — and still remains — the
leading publisher on the subjects of popular health, nutrition and organic
gardening.

Lady Eve Balfour distinguished herself by her ability to communicate and
demystify science, bringing it back to earth and into the hands of ordinary
people. Equally notable was her moral leadership and courage in her work in
a period when her ideas ran against the grain of mainstream thought.
Balfour studied agriculture at the University of Reading and began farming
in Suffolk in 1915. In 1939 she started a unique and pioneering experiment
which was the first ecologically designed agricultural research project on
a full-farm scale.

According to her, the project was "set up to fill the gap in the evidence
on which the claims for the benefits of organic husbandry were based. It
was decided that the only way to achieve this was to observe and study
nutrition cycles, functioning as a whole, under contrasting methods of land
use, but on the same soil and under the same management, the purpose being
to assess what effect, if any, the different soil treatments had on the
biological quality of the produce grown thereon, including its nutritive
value as revealed through its animal consumers." This work had never been
done before. Balfour published her research in 1943, in her landmark book
The Living Soil. Through her multi-disciplinary, holistic approach she
illuminated the subject for many people and created a new approach to food,
agriculture and health.

Out of the meeting convened to discuss her work in 1946 was formed the Soil
Association in Britain, and Lady Balfour continued her pivotal comparative
studies between organic and conventional farming on her own farm. Today the
Soil Association continues to be one of the leading organizations in
Britain active in organic food and farming, certifying the organic produce
in that nation. (For more information, see their website:
www.soilassociation.org.)

Another seminal figure of the ecological movement who helped invent and
define the notion of a land ethic was Aldo Leopold. His Sand County
Almanac, published posthumously in 1949, began as a series of essays on the
changes of seasons and their effect on ecological balance. Leopold called
for nothing less than a revolution in human consciousness and proposed an
ecological conscience as the basis for collective responsibility. He wanted
a land ethic to be part of the hearts and minds of all Americans so they
would act freely in ecologically responsible ways. As a moral philosopher
and teacher, Leopold turned the science of ecology into a didactic
statement aimed at the moral instruction of his fellow citizens.

Through their lives, books and work as homesteaders, Helen and Scott
Nearing inspired a generation desiring to get back to the land. In the
1920s, Scott Nearing was a progressive reformer, socialist critic and
university professor who lost his job due to his radical politics. After he
and his partner Helen became practicing homesteaders in the 1930s, they
went on to write, in 1954, the bestseller Living the Good Life: How to Live
Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World, a practical handbook on sustainable
living as an antidote to consumerism and environmental destruction.

The Nearings built their own homes, grew their own food, and achieved
virtual cult status in the following years, providing inspiration to a
legion of young people who in the 1960s and '70s were seeking a simpler
life based on the principles of sustainability, ecological agriculture and
self-reliance.

Alan Chadwick is largely credited as the founder of the biodynamic/French
intensive school of horticulture. This innovative method synthesized
traditional horticulture practices and observations from the Greek, Chinese
and Roman cultures on through 19th-century French market gardens — folk
techniques with modern scientific validity. As an applied, aesthetic
horticulturalist, he had an incalculable impact on the development and
growth of the organic farming movement. Chadwick ignited countless students
who observed and engaged in his technique, most notably practiced at
University of California at Santa Cruz and the San Francisco Zen Center's
Green Gulch retreat in Marin County. Chadwick's emphasis on working with
nature, rather than overpowering it, struck a chord with young people. The
Garden and Farm at UC Santa Cruz served as a magnet for students interested
in small-scale, organic agriculture and continues to inspire and teach
people from around the world the methods that Chadwick introduced. The
early activities of the UCSC Farm and Garden very much presaged what would
become the mass movement toward organic farming and sustainable
agriculture, and evolved into the Agroecology Program (now known as the
UCSC Center for Agroecology and Food Systems). This was the first
University of California project to focus on what has come to be known as
"sustainable " agricultural systems, and to pursue research on organic
production techniques.

Writer Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, published in 1962, also had a
profound impact. Carson successfully bundled the diverse aspects of
information about pesticide abuse and ubiquitous exposure, biological
magnification and environmental impact into a narrative that flowed and was
understandable to the general public, not steeped in science. Written with
a biologist's eye and a poet's soul, it revealed just how widespread the
use of pesticides and herbicides had become, what the poisons were doing to
plant and animal ecology, and how residues were traveling in the food chain
from ponds and topsoil into the nation's diet. It became an instant
best-seller.

Carson had reluctantly begun a war against the better-
living-through-chemistry crowd in agriculture and government. By the end of
1962, more than 40 bills in different state legislatures had been
introduced governing the regulation of pesticide use. Silent Spring was the
impetus for the founding, in 1967, of the Environmental Defense Fund, which
later led the battle to ban DDT. Silent Spring has been called one of the
most influential books of the 20th century, and Carson was selected by Life
magazine as one of the 100 most important Americans of the 20th century.
Forty years later, the book is still in print. More recent literary
offerings include the philosophical, ecologically centered writings of
Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson and Gene Logsdon.

>From the purist view of followers of Japan's Masanobu Fukuoka, who
advocates "no tillage, no fertilizer, no pesticides, no weeding and no
pruning," to the deep-ecology perspective of permaculture as manifest by
its founder Bill Mollison, there has always been a wide range of variation
in organic practices. As big business begins to subvert what was once seen
as the fringe, unconventional, even freaky practice of growing food
organically, it is vital to recall and appreciate the spirit of those who
conspired to inspire a global movement toward chemical-free, clean food.

David Kupfer is an environmental acivist and consultant, and an organic
farmer and advocate. He is working on a video and book on the history of
the organic movement in California. He can be reached at harpo@well.com.