The history of the Organic Movement is closely allied to that of the Soil Association. “The Soil Association”, they say “was founded in 1946 by a group of farmers, scientists and nutritionists who observed a direct connection between farming practice and plant, animal, human and environmental health.
The catalyst was the publication of The Living Soil by Lady Eve Balfour (see picture below) in 1943. The book presented the case for an alternative, sustainable approach to agriculture that has since become known as organic farming.
In the ensuing years the organisation has developed organic standards and now works with consumers, farmers, growers, processors, retailers and policy makers.
But at its heart our mission remains the same – to create an informed body of public opinion about these links and to promote organic agriculture as a sustainable alternative to intensive farming methods.”
In the 1940s they:
Promoted positive health
Husband and wife team, Drs George Scott Williamson and Innes Pearse publish their research from the Peckham Health Club, 1935-39. Their survey of 950 families, The Peckham Experiment, shows how a preventative approach that builds positive health through education, nutrition and exercise, is more effective than curing ill-health. Williamson and Pearse join Lady Eve Balfour and others as founding members of the Soil Association in 1946.
Since 2000 They have launched Food for Life in 2003. It champions healthy food and cooking skills for all school children. They exposed the fact that 37p is spent on an average school lunch. Boosted by TV chef, Jamie Oliver, the Soil Association’s campaign forces the Government to pledge an extra £280 million in 2005 for school dinners.
Alerted the public to the perils of pesticides
In its first issue, the precursor of Living Earth, the Soil Association journal, Mother Earth, questioned the use of DDT (an insecticide) in agriculture: “By the wholesale use of powerful insecticides of which far too little is yet known, we may well be upsetting the whole balance of Nature. We are like schoolboys rat-hunting in a munition dump with a flame-thrower.”
Over the next three decades evidence of DDT’s impacts as a persistent pollutant and suspected carcinogen mounted. Finally, in 1978, the Soil Association’s concerns are vindicated, when DDT is banned across Europe from most agricultural use, with a total ban in 1983.
Made the link between soil fertility and food quality
Their first annual conference, Health and the Soil, made the connection between soil fertility, the presence of trace elements and minerals, and human health.
50 years later, in 2001, their research highlighted the Ministry of Agriculture studies showing declines in minerals in UK fruit and vegetables of up to 76% over the period 1940 to 1991. In 2004, the Committee of Advertising Practice approved 30 positive statements about organic food including this one: ‘No food has higher amounts of beneficial minerals, essential amino acids and vitamins than organic food.’
Opposed antibiotics
Widespread use of antibiotics to control disease and promote animal growth began in US factory-farms. Over the next few decades concern grew over their role in reducing the effectiveness of antibiotics used in human medicine. The Soil Association’s first organic standards, published in 1967, prohibit the routine use of drugs and antibiotics in livestock, and the use of antibiotic animal feed. The death of several children linked to antibiotic resistant bacteria in livestock leads to a government inquiry in 1969 under Lord Swann, which advises against use of antibiotic growth promoters. Swann’s recommendations are only partly implemented. A long-running campaign lead to EU ban on six antibiotic feed additives in 1999.
Their then president, Dr E. F. Schumacher (author of Small is Beautiful), urged that organic philosophy be manifested by the commercial availability of ‘poison-free’ food.
The organic food and drink market is now worth a staggering £1.6 billion, after growing 30% in the last year (compared to the non-organic market which grew only 3%). One in three consumers is now knowingly buying organic food.
Created consumer power
Their Marketing Company Ltd was formed (now Soil Association Certification Ltd) to certify and promote organic produce. Their symbol, based on the plane of infinity by 17th-century mathematician Boy, was registered as a trademark. First symbol for a processed organic product is granted to Aspall apple juices, farmed by Soil Association co-founder Petronella Guild (who died in 2004 at the ripe old age of 101).
The Soil Association now certifies over 70% of organic food and drink sold in the UK. Aspall’s is still thriving, with their cyder and cyder vinegar coming from an 100 year-old orchard, which has been organic since 1946.
Tried to Prevent BSE
In 1983, the Soil Association bans animal protein from organic livestock feed for ruminants (cattle and sheep) as an unnatural feeding cycle, rightly predicting serious consequences. Three years after the ban, the first case of BSE (mad cow disease) is confirmed in 1986. In 1988, the government finally bans animal protein from all ruminant feed. In May 1995, the first person dies from variant CJD linked to BSE.
The Government inquiry into BSE and variant CJD published in 2000 states: ‘BSE developed into an epidemic as a consequence of an intensive farming practice – the recycling of animal protein in ruminant feed.’ There have been no recorded cases of BSE confirmed in any organic cattle reared and raised on fully-converted organic farms.
Worked for wildlife
A Government conservation agency report published in 1984, Nature Conservation in Britain, detailed loss and damage to wildlife over the past 50 years, e.g. 95% of wildflower meadows destroyed. Intensive agriculture noted as the main cause.
In 2000, a joint report with WWF-UK cites 41 scientific studies showing that organic farms support more wildlife than non-organic farms. An English Nature and RSPB survey in 2004 confirms that organic farming supports greater numbers and varieties of birds, wild-plants, insects and bats. The government awards organic farmers £30 more per hectare than non-organic farmers in recognition of these wildlife benefits.
Organic farmers, Jan and Tim Deane create the first organic fruit and veg box. Initially providing boxes for 20 families, within 4 years they are supplying 200. The first regular organic food market is established, at Spitalfields in London. The Soil Association’s Community Supported Agriculture conference promotes the concept more widely.
Today over 500 organic veg box schemes are operating in the UK. There are 550 farmers’ markets with an annual turnover of £220 million. 15% of produce sold at these is organic.
And GM-free zones
A Soil Association campaign to keep the UK GM-free attracts widespread public support and leads to a supermarket ban on GM ingredients from own-brand products. In 1998, the Soil Association challenges the government and GM seed companies in the high court to halt a GM trial threatening an organic grower, Guy Watson. Judges rule that the government has acted illegally.
Following widespread public opposition and negative impacts of GM field trials on the environment, the government announces in 2004 that GM crops will not be commercially grown in the UK in the foreseeable future.
Initially the Organic Movement started off small, with conventional farmers, artificial fertilizer manufacturers pouring scorn on it. Now it is main stream, well known people endorsing it. This and what has happened since 2000 will be the subject of the next post.
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