Organic Farming Definition and History
Another important figure in the development of organic farming was the Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner. Like Howard, he rejected the materialism and reductionism of modern agricultural practices and emphasized the living soil as the basis for health, vitality, and spiritual connection. Steiner’s philosophy was influenced by Franz Brentano, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hinduism, and Theosophy, but was based was based most heavily on the works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Christian spirituality. Steiner published several works on Goethe’s epistemology, spirituality, and concepts of nature and science. Though his writings span a variety of subjects, among his most important and lasting influences was his development of Biodynamic Agriculture, an intensive, integrated production system which conceives the farm as a self-contained system balanced by the interconnected life-forces of both the earth and cosmos.
Both Steiner and Howard were important influences for Jerome Rodale, a magazine publisher and health crusader who would become the foremost advocate for organic farming in the United States. Unlike most of his European counterparts, Rodale promoted organic in a way that was primarily pragmatic, secular, and apolitical. Among his most important contributions were his promotion of organic gardening, which introduced its methods to non-farmers, and his establishment of long-term research trials comparing organic and conventional production methods.
Rodale’s publications were highly influential for the American counterculture, who embraced organic farming and gardening passionately during the late 1960’s and early 70’s. During this time, young people participated in a vast rural migration to conduct utopian experiments in homesteading and communal living. Warren Belasco details this phenomenon in Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took on the Food Industry (1989). This back to the land movement was based on a neo-agrarian worldview which rejected consumerism in favor of self sufficiency, simplicity, and a closer connection to the natural world. Like the early movement it emphasized small farms, soil conservation, and crop diversity, as well as environmentalism and energy conservation. In contrast, its social goals were promoted more through lifestyle decisions than political advocacy.
This movement formed the basis for a community of like-minded individuals who worked to develop, define, and promote organic farming and production standards. By the late 1980’s organic food was gaining popularity and beginning to command premium prices. At the same time, standards had become more complex, and certification schemes increasingly sophisticated and numerous. Recognition of its increasing popularity and a perception that its commercial development was limited by the lack of consistency in standards led to the legislative institutionalization of organic farming through the development of national certification programs.
In the US, a National Organic Program (NOP) administered through the Department of Agriculture was authorized through the 1990 farm bill to establish rules defining appropriate practices and a process for certifying organic farms and production facilities. Initially organic growers and advocates were encouraged by this legitimization, but the implementation and repercussions of the NOP have caused considerable frustration and disillusionment. Appropriate materials and practices have always been controversial, and remain contested today.
Enacted in 2002, The National Organic Program Final Rule describes organic farming as “A production system that is managed in accordance with the [Organic Foods Production] Act and regulations in this part to respond to site-specific conditions by integrating cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity” (Subpart A, Section 205.2). As such, the NOP ignores social movement issues related to health, labor standards, farm size, energy conservation, and rural development. Critics have claimed that the NOP has robbed organic farming of its philosophical basis, and facilitated its commercialization and industrialization. Since its implementation there have been substantial increases in the size of organic farms, the number of farms growing both organic and conventional produce, the prevalence of organic products originating outside of the US, and the concentration of ownership in the organic food processing and retail sectors.
In response, many traditional organic producers have sought to differentiate themselves and their products based on their adherence to traditional elements of the organic philosophy. Recent years have seen the emergence of the terms beyond organic and moreganic, the local food movement, and the reframing of organic principles using terms such as civic agriculture, coined by Thomas Lyson who describes it in his 2004 book Civic Agriculture: Reconnecting Farm, Food, and Community. The rapid development of civic agriculture and the local food movement are evident in the proliferation of farmers markets and community supported agriculture, which invites consumers to participate directly in the labors, risks, and rewards of food production. The growth of such direct marketing practices is consistent with organic movement support for small, diverse, independent farm enterprises, and is being led by farmers committed to traditional organic production methods.
For almost a century, organic farming has been an evolving, negotiated, values-based activity related to ideological notions regarding the relationship between nature, society, and food production. Small, diverse, ecologically conscious growers continue to maintain farm operations based on the kind of holistic, post-materialist, agrarian values which were once the hallmark of organic philosophy. Organic farming practice is thriving today, but the organic farming movement is very much in crisis. Caught between two equally uncertain and divergent scenarios, its adherents are struggling simultaneously to maintain as many of its principles as possible within the current rules, and to redefine a movement which has lost its name, but is unable to divest itself from the system which has usurped it.
Agnew, E. (2004). Back From the Land: How Young Americans Went to Nature in the 1970’s, and Why They Came Back. Chicago, Ivan R. Dee.
Belasco, W. J. (1989). Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took On the Food Industry. New York, Pantheon Books.
Coleman (2002). “Beyond Organic.” Mother Earth News December 2001/January 2002(189): 73-74.
Conford, P. (2001). The Origins of the Organic Movement. Edinburgh, Floris Books.
DeLind, L. B. (2000). “Transforming organic agriculture into industrial organic products: Reconsidering National Organic Standards.” Human Organization 59(2): 198-208.
Fromartz, S. (2006). Organic, Inc.: Natural Foods and How they Grew. Orlando, Austin, New York, San Diego, Toronto, London, Harcourt, Inc.
Guthman, J. (2004). Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California. Berkley/Los Angeles/London, University of California Press.
Hemleben, J. (1975). Rudolf Steiner: A Documentary Biography, Henry Goulden Limited.
Howard, S. A. (1940). An Agriclutural Testament. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Howard, S. A. (1947). The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture. New York, Devin-Adair.
Lyson, T. A. (2004). Civic Agriculture: Reconnecting Farm, Food, and Community. Medford, MA, Tufts University Press.
Montmarquet (2000). American Agrarianism: The Living Tradition. The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism. P. B. Thompson and T. C. Hilde. Nashville, TN, Vanderbilt University Press: 51-76.
Pollan, M. (2001). Behind the organic-industrial complex. New York Times. New York: 16 pp.
Reynolds, P. C. (2000). “Social Sustainability: Organic Food at the Crossroads.” from https://www.fearlessfoods.com.
Sligh, M. and C. Christman (2003). Who Owns Organic? Pittsboro, NC, Rural Advancement Foundation International – USA: 26 pp.
Steiner, R. (1958). Agriculture: A Course of Eight Lectures: Given at Koberwitz, Silesia, 7th to 16th June, 1924. London, Bio-Dynamic Agricultural Association.
Thompson, P. B. (2000). Agrarianism as Philosophy. The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism. P. B. Thompson and T. C. Hilde. Nashville, TN, Vanderbilt University Press: 25-50.
USDA (2002). National Organic Program Final Rule. U. S. D. o. Agriculture, Washington, DC: 544 pp.
Vos, T. (2000). “Visions of the middle landscape: Organic farming and the politics of nature.” Agriculture and Human Values 17: 245-256.
Leave a comment