Who are the most influential farmers and organizations in organic agriculture?
Who are the most influential people in the history of organic and sustainable agriculture? What books do organic farmers read? Which organizations do they join?
These were just a few of the questions that I asked two years ago, when I created a short online survey asking organic and sustainable farmers who influenced their methods and philosophies. I announced this survey and gave some details about my research project in the August 2021 issue of Acres U.S.A.
Now, two years later, I am finally able to share the results! The full report has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems under the title “Organic Information: Influential Authors and Organizations in the Midwestern and Northeastern United States Organic and Sustainable Agriculture Community.” It’s an open-access article, available to read and download for free at https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170523000212.
The journal article has all the technical details on my methods. I received 224 complete survey responses, which were evenly distributed across the survey area — roughly half from the Midwest and half from the Northeast. Of course, that’s just a drop in the bucket compared to the total number of organic and sustainable farmers in this region. But based on many conversations I’ve had with organic farmers, I have good reason to believe that these responses are fairly representative.
The Results
So, who were the most influential people and publications, according to my research?
With 60 mentions, Maine vegetable grower and author Eliot Coleman consistently came in first across the entire region in all demographic groups. And for good reason — most organic vegetable growers in the Northeast and Midwest use some version of his farming methods. I’ve interviewed many vegetable growers who personally visited Coleman at his Four Season Farm in coastal Maine or were mentored by another vegetable grower who was taught by Coleman.
Coleman’s biggest influence, of course, is his practical vegetable-growing books. His writing style is straightforward, eloquent and practical. He draws from hundreds of classic organic gardening books, tours of dozens of vegetables farms in Europe and the United States, and decades of personal experience.
The New Organic Grower, now in its third edition, remains one of the most thorough and practical guides to organic vegetable production in print. Four-Season Harvest and The Winter Harvest Handbook provide practical winter farming advice that works anywhere in USDA plant hardiness zones 4-6. And The Four-Season Farm Gardener’s Cookbook, co-authored with his wife Barbara Damrosch, contains more practical advice along with delicious recipes for serving the harvest.
Tied for second place, with 35 mentions each, were Rodale Press publications and Wendell Berry. The influence of Rodale Press is not surprising at all. From the 1940s to early 1970s, most organic farming and gardening books published in the United States bore the Rodale Press imprint. Rodale’s Organic Gardening and Farming magazine kept organic farmers connected while agricultural scientists dismissed them as a cult of crackpots and food faddists.
A similar survey conducted in 1970 would undoubtedly have found Rodale Press publications in first place. But their influence began to wane by the 1990s, when classic compendiums like the Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening and How to Grow Vegetables and Fruits by the Organic Method were replaced by the up-to-date, carefully researched works of Eliot Coleman and others. There’s a reason Coleman titled his book the New Organic Grower – in contrast to the older organic Rodale Press guides.
Rodale Press stopped publishing any type of organic magazine in 2015 and was sold to Hearst Publications in 2017. The fact that their books still claimed second place despite being out of print for several decades is testimony to the incredibly important role they played in promoting organic farming in the United States when no one else would dare.
Agrarian philosopher Wendell Berry tied with Rodale Press for second place. Unlike most of the other top books, Berry’s works are philosophical, not practical farming guides. Beginning with 1977’s The Unsettling of America, Berry promoted agrarian simplicity as an alternative to the industrialized, dehumanizing agribusiness that was rapidly transforming rural America at the time. Later works like The Gift of Good Land and Bringing It to the Table expanded on this agrarian philosophy.
Writing in the context of the ecological and economic farm crises of the 1970s and 1980s, Berry was one of the most vocal critics of Earl Butz’s call for farmers to “get big or get out.” As an alternative to ever-more-sophisticated and impersonal technology, Berry advocated for simple technology that worked with nature and nurtured family-centered rural communities.
Acres U.S.A. readers will be excited to hear that this magazine came in fourth place, with 23 mentions. Charles Walters founded Acres U.S.A. in 1971 to promulgate his vision of “eco-agriculture.” The “eco” in this phrase had a double meaning. Concerned by the growing farm crisis and rising cost of agrichemical inputs, Walters worked with the National Farmers Organization (NFO) to advocate for better commodity prices for struggling farmers — economical farming. Strongly influenced by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and his own research on the toxicity of pesticides, Walters believed that agriculture should be ecological as well.
Virginia grass farmer Joel Salatin came in fifth place, with 20 mentions — mostly of his books You Can Farm and Folks, This Ain’t Normal. Salatin’s books were mentioned more frequently than any others about grass or livestock farming, and the methods of management intensive grazing and pastured poultry production that he has popularized have been widely adopted around the country. At the forefront of the local food movement, Salatin promotes direct marketing and on-farm, open-air poultry processing.
Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka came in sixth place, with 19 mentions of his 1978 book One Straw Revolution. Fukuoka promoted a type of natural farming that used even fewer inputs than typical organic methods. He did not use any type of chemical fertilizer or pesticides, but he also did not use prepared compost. He was an early advocate of no-till, neither plowing nor cultivating his fields. He did not use herbicides, relying instead on heavy mulching, living ground covers, and flooding to control weeds in his rice fields.
In seventh place, with 17 mentions, were Michael Pollan’s food and agriculture books — The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, Food Rules and Cooked. Pollan’s descriptive, poetic writing style made his books bestsellers, and appears to have influenced not only consumers but farmers as well. Perhaps the greatest impact Pollan’s writings have had is on the local food movement, with his emphasis on small, local farms; hunting and foraging; and cooking from scratch with high-quality ingredients.
Bill Mollison’s permaculture books and Mark Shepard’s Restoration Agriculture each had twelve mentions. Gabe Brown’s Dirt to Soil, Helen and Scott Nearing’s Living the Good Life and Jean-Martin Fortier’s The Market Gardener were mentioned ten times apiece. Wes Jackson and Rachel Carson each had nine mentions, followed by Aldo Leopold, Gene Logsdon, Michael Phillips, and Sir Albert Howard, with eight mentions apiece.
Getting Organized
Three-quarters of survey respondents listed at least one author as influential. An equal number said that they had been involved with at least one organic or sustainable agriculture organization.
Several organizations rose to the top, and they all had one thing in common — they were state or regional organizations. In the Midwest, Wisconsin-based Marbleseed (formerly MOSES) had the highest number of mentions, followed by the Land Stewardship Project in Minnesota, the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, the Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance, the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota, and Practical Farmers of Iowa.
In the Northeast, the most important organizations were the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA); the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA), especially the New York and Vermont chapters; and the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA).
Most respondents were involved with their state’s organic or sustainable agriculture organization, highlighting the importance of these organizations in connecting farmers with others in their region. Annual conferences — especially the Marbleseed and MOFGA conferences — were mentioned by several people as “inspirational” and influential. Others relied heavily on organizational newsletters, especially Marbleseed’s Organic Broadcaster and NOFA’s The Natural Farmer.
Finally, over half of the people who filled out the survey mentioned a personal friend, relative, or neighbor as an important influence. Many learned from other farmers, sometimes apprenticing at established organic farms or simply talking with more experienced farmers at conferences.
Oral Histories
While the survey was very helpful in identifying the most influential authors and organizations, it’s the personal stories that can make this history come alive. I have been able to do nearly 40 oral history interviews over the past two years in Michigan, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois. I’ve interviewed farmers, researchers and organizational leaders, each of whom has shared amazing stories and important insights into this fascinating history. Here are a few of the stories I’ve recorded:
- Jody and Terry Grundy, Scott Williams and David Rosenberg talked about how they helped found Rural Resources in Ohio in 1975 and the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association in 1979.
- Dennis Keeney and Rich Pirog talked about the founding and growth of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University.
- John Biernbaum, George Bird and Joseph Heckman shared their experiences as professors sympathetic to organic and sustainable agriculture at land grant universities.
- John Myer, Joe Scrimger and Kenn Zimmerman discussed how they transitioned their family farms to organic methods and became involved in the organic and sustainable agriculture community.
- Brian Caldwell, Mick Luber and Steve Pincus told how they went from student activism to organic farming in the 1970s as part of the back-to-the-land movement.
- Chris Anderson, Rosie Massie, and Sarah Yoder shared their memories of Walnut Acres, the original organic mail-order food company based in Penns Creek, Pennsylvania.
- Jack Knight, Mick Luber and Leonard Pollara described organic farming from the viewpoint of certification inspectors over the past thirty years.
- Jim Wedeberg and Julia Ugo gave an overview of the history of CROPP Cooperative and Organic Valley and how they revolutionized the organic dairy industry.
- Eliot Coleman and Joel Salatin gave brief histories of their farms and talked about their methods and philosophies.
I am donating all of the audio recordings and transcripts from these interviews to the Wisconsin Historical Society, which will archive them for future researchers. I’ve also launched a new website — historyoforganic.com — which includes the full pdf transcripts of all the oral histories I have conducted so far. They’re listed on the “transcripts” page in alphabetical order. I’ve also included some behind-the-scenes information about my Malabar Farm book and some of the older articles I wrote for Acres. And I’ve started a new blog with updates on my research progress and new website content.
I’m still looking to do interviews with older people (60+) who have been involved in some aspect of organic and sustainable agriculture. Have you been farming organically for more than 20 years? Did you help found an organization? Edit a newsletter or magazine? Sell compost? Lobby for organic policy? Work at a co-op? Inspect organic farms? Go back to the land in the seventies? Grow up on an organic farm? If so, get in touch with me! Let’s get your story recorded. Please send me an email and let’s get in touch. Don’t use email? Just send a letter to the Acres office, and they’ll pass it on to me.
I can’t wait to hear what other stories are still out there, waiting to be told!
Anneliese Abbott is the author of Malabar Farm: Louis Bromfield, Friends of the Land, and the Rise of Sustainable Agriculture. She has a master’s degree in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and farms with her family in Otsego, Michigan.
