Agricultural History Review, Volume 56 Part 2 (2008), p. 241

Growing acceptance of organic foods has been one of the most significant developments in the British retail food sector over the past ten to fifteen years. However, this organic boom has affected British farmers considerably less than it has consumers; despite spiralling organic food sales, less than five per cent of British agricultural land is under organic production. The organic revolution, viewed from the perspective of British farmers, has largely been about food imports and conversion to organic production by some livestock or mixed farms in the west; very little of Britain’s organic acreage lies in the arable areas of the east of England.

Nevertheless, public embrace of organic food raises questions for agricultural historians, not least ‘where did the organic food movement come from?’ and ‘what are its fundamental principles?’ Three books, originally published in the 1940s, and recently brought back into print by the Soil Association (SA) offer some answers.

Philip Conford was the driving force behind the Soil Association’s decision to reprint these ‘organic classics’ and he acted as series editor. The original idea was to develop a longer series: however, these three are unlikely to be joined by other titles, despite the existence of several books from the same period that might warrant reprinting. The chosen three are: Lady Eve Balfour’s bestseller, The living soil (first published in 1943), Sir Albert Howard’s tract on compost, Farming and gardening for health or disease (1945), and the Cheshire GP Lionel Picton’s presentation of organic concepts and their relevance to nutrition, Thoughts on feeding (1946).

Those familiar with Conford’s work, particularly his Origins of the organic movement, will have no difficulty understanding his reasons for wanting to see these books come back into print. For the SA perhaps they serve to emphasize that it is not a new, inexperienced organisation. Despite the organic movement’s recent successes, it remains vulnerable to accusations that it is little more than the product of woolly ideas dating back to the 1960s and ’70s about working with, rather than against, Mother Nature. These books are a reminder that the SA has a longer history and a more developed intellectual foundation than many might suspect.

Of the three authors whose ‘organic classics’ have been revived, Sir Albert Howard tends to be remembered by people who have taken the time to investigate composting techniques and their history. An agricultural scientist who spent most of his career working at research stations in colonial India, Howard has long been viewed as one of the most acceptable (i.e. scientific) faces of the organic movement. Howard developed the ‘Indore’ composting technique during the 1920s, after observing and modifying methods used by Indian peasant farmers to protect and enhance soil fertility. During the 1930s and 1940s, Howard promoted Indore composting as the key to sound agriculture. He was scathing about inorganic fertilizers and the new chemical-based crop protection products. Indeed, Howard’s response to any approach to agricultural science other than his own was negative. As this book makes clear, he liked to be in charge and was not a team player.

Farming and gardening for health or disease is, Conford explains, Howard’s ‘most panoramic and inclusive’ book. Howard places composting within the context of his personal understanding of agricultural history (he begins with primitive agriculture, takes in farming in classical Greece and Rome, considers medieval farming traditions, and ends with the Second World War). This is also a profoundly ecological book; ensuring that agriculture does not threaten ecological functioning is Howard’s overriding concern. Howard refers frequently to ‘Mother Earth’ and expresses an almost spiritual belief in the power of (feminine) nature. Agricultural problems and diseases affecting a range of crops – from tea to potatoes – are discussed, with Howard arguing in each case that only composting has the power to restore and maintain the health of soil, crops and livestock. It has been argued that Howard was the most significant figure of the British organic movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Farming and gardening offers insights into his thinking and, in so doing, provides clues about how many early organic supporters viewed agriculture and wished to see it develop.

Lady Eve Balfour’s The living soil is known more widely than Howard’s work, primarily thanks to the Soil Association’s tendency to refer to Balfour as its founder. However, it is unlikely that many people have read The living soil and those who have probably read the 1975 version, which was radically different from the original 1943 edition. Conford has wisely chosen the first edition for reprinting. An introduction by Lawrence Woodward, of Elm Farm Research Centre, offers useful biographical and agricultural context.

The living soil was the organic movement’s biggest publishing success, and was reprinted many times during the late 1940s and 1950s. It is easy to see why. In it, Balfour brings together organic concepts and arguments, presenting them in a direct and enthusiastic writing style. Discussion about what was then new scientific research is presented in an accessible, almost suspenseful style. The Living Soil was as close to a page-turner as the early organic movement ever came. It was also published at the right moment, when people in Britain and its colonies were being urged to grow as much food as possible and were thus receptive to information and debate about agriculture and horticulture in a way they had not been before the war.

Another appeal of The living soil is its wide ranging nature and optimism. Balfour discusses everything from soil erosion to the future of Britain’s housing policy, encouraging her war-time readers to dream of a better world in which healthy people eat highly-nutritious food, live in airy homes, and contribute passionately to the rebuilding of Britain and its empire. Essentially, this was a call to arms and remains so in spite of passages that have inevitably dated. Re-reading The living soil, it is easy to see why Lady Eve Balfour became a leading figure in the post-war organic movement.

The third ‘organic classic’, Thoughts on feeding, is the least well-known and, until now, the most difficult to secure from second-hand book dealers. Lionel Picton’s book is part memoir, part personal statement on nutrition, part organic tract. A GP in Cheshire during the first decades of the twentieth century, Picton was convinced that poor diet was the culprit behind most disease and that food grown organically was more nutritious. He and a group of his fellow Cheshire doctors published a ‘testament’ to this effect in 1939, which included the following statement: ‘We feel that the fact should be faced. Our daily work brings us repeatedly to the same point: “This illness results from a lifetime of wrong nutrition”.’ Thoughts on Feeding is much more uneven in tone and pace than Howard’s or Balfour’s works, and some of the scientific explanations are rather convoluted. Other passages are simply odd, sometimes delightfully so. Picton has much to say on flatulence, bowel movements, and why (human) mothers should institute breastfeeding schedules identical to those of cows. Given Picton’s strong opinions and his discussion of specific medical cases, Thoughts on Feeding may be of interest to historians of medicine as much as to agricultural and rural historians.

Together, these three ‘organic classics’ do not tell the whole story of the early organic movement. Several other long-out-of-print works come to mind, including Maye E.Bruce’s two books on composting and Friend Sykes’ Humus and the Farmer. By reprinting three, Conford and the Soil Association have made it a great deal easier for historians to understand the ideas of the early organic movement and the arguments its leaders presented as part of their (unsuccessful) effort to resist the rise of industrial agriculture.