Organic farming and food systems have experienced a phenomenal growth over the past three decades. Since food consumption is a relatively inelastic phenomenon for most industrialized countries, this major growth represents a conversion in purchase and eating habits, and the organic food sector today represents over $30 billion (Euro 20 billion) in global annual sales. Organic Farming: An International History comes at an appropriate time to chronicle the growth of this industry and discuss the factors that are likely to preserve the trend.
William Lockeretz is a well-recognized expert in this area, as one of the first researchers to compare organic and conventional production systems and outputs on farms in the US. He has also been active in the global arena since the organization of IFOAM, an international umbrella group that urges and oversees the development of uniform standards that are recognized and accepted. With his many contacts in Europe, Dr Lockeretz is ideally placed to entice the world's experts in organic farming to contribute to what has become a well organized and superbly edited volume.
An introductory chapter by the editor quickly traces the history of organic farming, while in chapter 2, Gunter Vogt describes a system that grew in response to ‘a crisis in the form of soil degradation, poor food quality and the decay of rural social life and traditions’ (p. 9) following World War II. He describes the focus on biological systems in the German- and English-speaking countries, including a foundation in science in the UK, Germany and the US. The biodynamic movement launched by Rudolph Steiner was a part of this thrust. An intriguing detail was the early support of biodynamic farming by highly placed Nazi leaders in Germany.
In chapter 3, Michael Sligh and Thomas Cierpka discuss the values that were imbedded in the philosophy and implementation of organic farming, most recently incorporated into the four principles of IFOAM: health, ecology, fairness and care. In addition to production methods and safe food, systems were designed for environmental stewardship and accountability and fairness throughout the system. A unique blend of science that combined farmer experience with experiment station rotations is described by Deborah Stinner in chapter 4. Many of the key advances came from private and non-profit institutes, as conventional universities were slow to embrace research on this alternative method of food production. Government support in Germany, Denmark, and the US soon followed, but research investments were minimal compared to those in chemical agriculture. Today the emphasis is on soil ecology, nutrient cycling, pest management, genetic and cultural resistance and food quality parameters. To date, organic livestock production has received far less attention than organic crops.
Organic practices and systems have evolved over time in response to farmer experience and science inputs, according to Urs Niggli (chapter 5) who is the Director of the FiBL Research Network in Switzerland and Germany. Modern approaches to organic crop production include field sanitation, tolerant varieties and mixtures, intercropping, nutrient cycling and approved crop protection agents. In several countries, government subsidies have been crucial to the growth of organics, as described by Susan Padel and Nick Lampkin in chapter 6. This became both more complicated and more universally available with the advent of organic alternatives within the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) enacted by the European Union in 2003 to reform support of the farm sector. Concurrently, the marketing options for organic foods were developing and maturing as described in chapter 7 by Jessica Aschmann and colleagues in Germany and Italy. There was a shift in the consumer demographic to a wider market, and essential to growth were the standards that were initially national and later became rationalized through the IFOAM as discussed in chapter 8 by Otto Schmid. The history of IFOAM as chronicled by Bernward Geier in chapter 9 was central to recognition and confidence for organic foods in the marketplace, and this group continues to be recognized as the international umbrella for individual certifiers, both public and private.
The importance of national farmer organizations and research groups that are especially organized to fit local context and resources is demonstrated by descriptions of The Soil Association in U.K. (Philip Conford and Patrick Holden, chapter 10), Ecological Farmers Association and KRAV in Sweden (Inger Källander, chapter 11), MAPO in Argentina (Dina Foguelman, chapter 12), NASAA in Australia (Els Wynen and Sandy Fritz, chapter 13) and the research network FiBL (Urs Niggli, chapter 14). Another major advance was the emergence of the Organic Trade Association that brought together private organizations in the processing and marketing sector, discussed by Katherine DiMatteo and Grace Gershuny in chapter 15.
A perspective on the future was assembled by Bernward Geier and several other authors from the book (chapter 15). There is a summary of original core principles that have stayed intact, along with some key changes that have been necessary and several unresolved issues that continue to be debated in organic circles. This last group includes the quest for uniquely adapted cultivars for special organic farming conditions and systems, the potentials for recycling urban waste including human manure and urine, the major disagreements over organic food quality, and the need to design agroecosystems that are more resilient and resource efficient, and thus more closely resemble natural systems. The industrialization of organic production and recent dominance of major multinational corporations in marketing, what is often called ‘Big O’, are major concerns to founders and purists in the organic farming and food sector.
One quality of Organic Farming that makes the book especially appealing to a North American audience is the preponderance of European authors and perspectives, an under-appreciated dimension in the history of organic farming. One could argue that the virtual absence of history and information from East Asia has created a Eurocentric volume that minimizes the valuable contributions to non-chemical systems that originated in China, Korea and Japan, a factor that was recognized by the editor. Overall, this history is comprehensive and well referenced. The chapters are written by experts in the organic farming and food sector. For a farmer, student, or researcher, this book provides most of what is needed to understand the modern origins and current practices in organic farming. The editor has done an exceptional job of bringing together solid information and documentation that gives a strong practical as well as theoretical foundation to organic farming today. The tone of the book provides direct contrast to another book that is highly skeptical about the future of organic farming (Kirchmann and BergströmReference Kirchmann and Bergström1). However, there is strong confirmation of the Lockeretz conclusions about the value of organic farming systems and foods in the most recent edited volume on the current science and practices of this important sector of agriculture (FrancisReference Francis2). The serious reader is directed to all three books to access a range of opinions as well as documented facts about the past and future of organic farming and foods.
