Britain's organic farming pioneers: What went wrong?

Tue 21 November 2023

Jesus College

The organic movement developed in the early 1900s as a response to the appearance of large-scale mechanized and chemicalized agricultural practices. One hundred years ago, and for the decades going forward, farming policies and practice favoured the large, mechanized farms the organic farming movement protested against; today, however, organic farming is back on the rise in the UK as farmers and consumers become more aware of the negative environmental consequences of chemicalized farming.

Why didn’t organic farming have the same appeal to farmers and policy makers when the movement first emerged? Could it have been because of the worldview of some of the movement’s founders?

In this talk, historian and environmentalist Lisbet Rausing will try to answer these questions by looking back on Britain’s organic farming pioneers in a talk that will place the organic movement and its leaders in the broader historical and political context of the post-WWI world.

Cost: Free of charge