Pioneers

Lady Eve BalfourDr. William A. AlbrechtLouis Bromfield Masanobu FukuokaSir Albert HowardEhrenfried Pfeiffer Alex PodolinskyJerome Irving RODALERudolf Steiner

Organic Agriculture owes its continued existence to the hard work and perseverance of a few progressive minds, able to see beyond the hype of conventional farming practices. These great thinkers helped us save many traditional sustainable practices, look critically at industrial agricultural systems and develop sustainable agricultural techniques.

In the following you find a far from complete list of personalities crucial for the development of the Organic Agriculture's principles.

Dr. William A. ALBRECHT
(1888-1974) was the foremost authority on the relation of soil fertility to human health and developed base-level requirements for soil nutrients that are still being used.
Lady Eve BALFOUR
(1899-1990) was one of the first women to study agriculture at an English university and her ideas inspired the formation of the Soil Association.
Louis BROMFIELD
(1896-1956) was a farmer and writer who recognized early on that nurturing the world was only possible by uprooting the problem of inequality and improper distribution.
Alan CHADWICK
(1909–1980) was born and raised in England. He was a master gardener, a leading innovator of organic farming techniques, and an influential Biodynamic gardening educator.
Masanobu FUKUOKA
(1914-2008) was a microbiologist, farmer and philosopher from the Japanese island of Shikoku. His well known work 'The One-Straw Revolution' (1975) describes both his life’s journey and hands-on, small-scale organic farming techniques.
Sir Albert HOWARD
(1873-1947) is often referred to as the father of modern organic agriculture. His classic work 'An Agricultural Testament' (1940) is freely available thanks to Project Gutenberg of Australia.
Aldo LEOPOLD
(1887-1948) is considered the father of wildlife ecology. His seminal work 'A Sand County Almanac' blends poetic prose with keen observations of the natural world.
Dr. Ehrenfried PFEIFFER
(1899–1961) was born in Munich, Germany. He worked closely with Rudolf Steiner to test and document many of the effects of biodynamic practices.
Alex PODOLINSKI
is one of the outstanding pioneering individuals in Bio-Dynamics. He has played an instrumental role in the highly successful application of Bio-Dynamic farming in Australia, where every conceivable crop is produced Bio-Dynamically.
Jerome Irving RODALE
(1898–1971) was a playwright, editor, author and publisher from the United States who popularized the term "organic" to mean grown without pesticides.
Rudolf STEINER
(1861-1925) was the founder of biodynamic agriculture along with Anthroposophy, Waldorf education, anthroposophical medicine, and Eurythmy.
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The early days of IFOAM - Organics International.