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From:
Peter Loring Borst <[log in to unmask]>
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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 7 May 2014 22:28:29 -0400
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stephen rice:
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that organic farming came out of Steiner's work.

Not according to reliable sources such as A. M. Scofield
Department of Biochemistry, Physiology & Soil Science, Wye College

Organic Farming-The Origin of the Name

The practice of farming described as "organic" is promoted under many names and there is a general feeling that the term, because of other contentious meanings, may not be the most suitable description. However, as this term was the earliest used it is as well to understand its original meaning before adopting alternatives which may not fully express the meaning of the original.

The present organic movement grew from the influential publications of workers such as Howard (1940), Balfour (1943) and Rodale (1945) which resulted from concern in the inter-war years over problems such as soil erosion and health. The true roots of modern organic farming, however, lie earlier in the agriculture of the anthroposophic followers of Rudolf Steiner (1924). This movement, known as biodynamic agriculture, was developed from a series of eight lectures given by Steiner at the request of a group of German farmers concerned about the increasing degeneration they had noticed in seed-strains and in many cultivated plants. 

The origin of the term 'organic farming' also lay here for Lord Northbourne, who first used the term 'organic' in his forgotten classic 'Look to the Land' (1940), was a practitioner of biodynamic farming, although it is not obvious from his book, and this provided him with the inspiration of his vision of the farm as a sustainable, ecologically stable, self-contained unit, biologically complete and balanced- a dynamic living organic whole.

SOURCE: Scofield, A. M. (1986). Organic farming—the origin of the name. Biological Agriculture & Horticulture, 4(1), 1-5.

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