The Organic Farming Movement in Europe

Abstract

Organic farming is a topic of marked interest in Europe today. The term “organic farming” is currently used to indicate those methods of crop and livestock production that seek to reduce outside energy inputs (some proponents would even include modern technology) as much as possible and to eliminate synthetic chemicals from the agricultural ecosystems. The aim is to reestablish an integral bond of agriculture with nature. The roots of the organic movement are ancient (see R.F. Korcak’s paper in this Workshop), but the current reformulation is traceable to events initiated in Europe during the first half of the 20th century. These include the principles of biodynamics as embodied in the Anthroposophical Society founded by Rudolf Steiner of Austria in 1912, which currently operates through an international foundation called “Demeter”; biological farming (based on organic and microbiological concepts) propounded by Muller and Rusch of Switzerland in the 1950s; the importance of organic compost and lime-rich algae put forth by the Lemaire and Boucher of France; green manure, polyspecies pasturage, and crop rotation advocated by Howard and Balfour of England in the 1940s; and the role of organic composts championed by Draghetti of Italy in the 1950s. These ideas have enjoyed a resurgence since the 1970s and have spawned several active movements attracting a limited but enthusiastic and tenacious group of adherents. Yet, with the exception of biodynamic agriculture, the movement’s various strands tend in effect to converge about the common denominator of “organic/biological farming”-the result of a process of regulatory uniformity that also is driven by market forces.