THE GLOBAL HISTORY OF ORGANIC FARMING

Gregory Barton is Professor of History at Western Sydney University and the University of Johannesburg, whose earlier books include Empire Forestry and the Origins of Environmentalism. One can see a link with this new book between forestry regeneration and organic agriculture and the way in which both feed more broadly into the modern environmental movement. The author had access for the first time to the family papers of Sir Albert Howard and his wives Gabrielle and Louise, who were in fact sisters (Gabrielle died in 1930). Those familiar with organic agriculture will probably be familiar with Howard (1873-1947) and his contribution to its origins, but this book sheds new light on the extent not only of his influence but in particular that of his second wife Louise after his death.

The author relates a telling anecdote at the beginning of his final chapter, when a Brazilian walks into the information centre at Bishop's Castle, where Howard grew up, asking where his statue was – the staff had not even heard of him, and of course there was no statue! For the Brazilian visitor, the context was 'Britain's global role in bringing an alternative dialogue between food production and environmental conservation, which is more than urgent to preserve human life on this planet' (p. 197) The point referred to here is that organic farming actually arose in an imperial setting - Howard spent most of his career in India, and the Institute in which he worked was set up by Curzon - and is 'part of a long history of environmental reforms initiated within the British Empire.'

The book is structured around Howard's life and career within the context of the agricultural development of the time, explaining the 19th-century background with the establishment of Rothhamsted as an experimental research station as early as 1843. The environmental movement as a whole sits within holism and has much in common with the American transcendentalist attitude to nature; also with wider historical agrarianism, which the author covers in detail going back as far as Livy and including Thomas Jefferson, the Romantics, Gilbert White, William Cobbett and other less well-known figures. The advent of processed food raised questions about the relationship between agriculture and health, an ongoing debate within the organic movement. The author discusses biodynamics, with which he has little sympathy, commenting that biodynamic farmers rely on Howard's methods as the base of operations for the farm. He also gives space to German biological farming, and it is significant that the word used in French for organic is also biologique - marking a clear contrast with modern chemical agriculture.

In describing Howard's education and career, the author comments that AE Housman and JRR Tolkien also grew up in Shropshire. He and both his wives were educated at Cambridge, and Louise even worked as Director of Studies in classics at Newnham College between 1909 and 1916. Howard and Gabrielle's output at Pusa between 1905 and 1923 was prodigious, amounting to 93 reports, articles or books on agriculture in India, so it is not surprising that they had little time or inclination for social life. They then worked at their own research station at Indore between 1924 and 1931, and it was here that Howard developed his famous Indore humus method, which was not in fact his invention but built on earlier work and responded to the economic needs of the locality. It was only later that he began to link the problem of depleted soil to plant and human health. The main point of the next chapter is an important one as it disposes of the assumption that organic farming and in particular the Indore Method originated in peasant wisdom, a view that was actually incorrectly promoted by Louise (p. 90). The author argues that this in fact obscures the startling originality of Howard's work, and traces the origins of the modern organic farming movement to 'the marriage of the Indore Method developed by Albert Howard in India with romantic, ecological and neo-traditional approaches to agriculture' (p. 104).

Howard was very active with Louise throughout the 1930s and 40s up to his death in 1947. He published his definitive work An Agricultural Testament in 1940, and collaborated with Sir Robert McCarrison, who had also worked in India researching the Hunza diet. Modern intensive methods were in the ascendant during the 1940s, and Howard found himself out of favour in conventional circles although his influence in other areas including gardening and medicine was enhanced. The author discusses the influence of the Howards around the world, including Japan, South Africa and the US with Jerome Rodale. Perhaps his most original contribution is highlighting the extraordinary role played by Louise Howard in the environmental movement with her regular newsletters. Significantly, she signalled growing alarm about DDT and wildlife in advance of Rachel Carson, and also highlighted the dangers of pesticides in food and hormones in meat. The author contends that Louise's work as an organiser, intellectual and activist make her not only a leading figure connecting past ideas of wholeness to scientific narratives, but that she was 'one of the single most influential women in the global environmental movement' - and the book certainly makes the case for this statement.

British readers might find the coverage of organic agriculture in the UK somewhat sparse, and there is only a passing reference to the work of the Prince of Wales in this respect. However, the book's strength lies in its description of the work of the Howards and its global influence. In his conclusion, the author reflects that the environmental need for organic farming is likely to drive its expansion, and in this respect he could have mentioned the 2013 report by the FAO on sustainability, and also other agro-ecological initiatives – the word agro-ecology does not even appear in the index. He is surely right, though, to emphasise the cultural significance of the organic movement as a response to industry pressure on science and scientists in terms of trust, and the need to speak to the heart as well as the head and to incorporate cultural and spiritual values.