creators_name: Paull, John editors_name: Hill, Stuart type: journalp datestamp: 2009-01-09 lastmod: 2010-02-04 09:19:28 metadata_visibility: show title: The Lost History of Organic Farming in Australia ispublished: pub subjects: countries-us subjects: countries-au subjects: history subjects: 2farming subjects: knowledge subjects: organics-countries-germany subjects: countries-uk subjects: countries-dk full_text_status: public keywords: history of organic agriculture, history of organic farming, Australian Organic Farming and Gardening Society, Organic Farming Digest, Farming and Gardening Digest, Farm & Garden Digest, Professor Stanton Hicks, Colonel Harold White, first organic farming society, first organic farming association, first institutional organic farming journal, first institutional statement of organic farming principles, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 1940s, 1950s. abstract: It has not been previously reported that the world’s first “organic” farming society was the Australian Organic Farming and Gardening Society (AOFGS) which was founded in Australia in October 1944. The association was based in Sydney, New South Wales, and the first issue of its journal, the Organic Farming Digest (OFD), was dated April 1946. This was Australia’s first, and the world’s second, “organic” farming journal. The eighteen month delay between the founding of the society and the first publication of the journal was because paper was unavailable in Australia for that purpose during WWII. The society published a total of 378 articles in 29 issues from 1946 to 1954. Articles from Australia, UK, USA, New Zealand, South Africa, Germany and Denmark were published. Topics included: farming and gardening; health; environment; politics and economics; and animal welfare. More than 190 authors were published. British authors published included Sir Albert Howard, Lady Louise Howard, Lady Eve Balfour, and Friend Sykes. American authors published included Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, Jerome Rodale, Gaylord Hauser, and Louis Bromfield. Australian authors from the states of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Queensland were published. These included Sir Stanton Hicks, then Professor of Physiology and Pharmacology at Adelaide University, NSW grazier Colonel Harold White, and Tasmanian MLC Henry Shoobridge. More than 130 original articles were published, and other articles were reproduced from many sources including: Organic Gardening (USA); Bio-Dynamic (USA); Soil and Health (UK); Health and the Soil (UK); Mother Earth, (UK); Trees and the Earth (UK); Farmers Weekly (South Africa) and Compost Magazine (NZ). The Society was wound up in 1955, due to lack of financial support. The digests published by the AOFGS document a decade of the thoughts, aspirations, focus, theory and practice of Australia’s first practitioners and proponents of organic farming, from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s. date: 2008-12 date_type: published publication: Journal of Organic Systems volume: 3 number: 2 publisher: Journal of Organic Systems pagerange: 2-17 refereed: yes referencetext: AQIS, 1989, The Case for a National Approach to Certification of Organically Grown Products, Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, Department of Primary Industries and Energy, Canberra, ACT, November. AWM, 2008, Australia Under Attack, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, ACT, , accessed 21 April 2008. BFA, 2007, The BFA - Celebrating two decades of growth for organics, The Organic Advantage, Biological Farmers of Australia, 90, 1-2. Bradshaw, J., 2003, A Brief History of Bio-dynamics - an Australian Perspective, Biodynamic Growing, 1, 4-6. 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SA, 2008, About Us: History, Soil Association, London, UK, , accessed 26 April 2008. SHANZ, 2008, Milestones in our History and Development, Soil & Health Association of New Zealand, Auckland, NZ, , accessed 26 April 2008. SSPI, 2007, Organic Farming - Resources by Subject, School of Science & Primary Industries, Waikato Institute of Technology Library, Hamilton, NZ, , accessed 26 April 2008. Wynen,E. & Fritz, S., 1987, Sustainable Agriculture: A Viable Alternative, Discssion Paper, No.1, National Associaation for Sustainable Agriculture, Australia (Ltd), Sydney South, NSW, August. Wynen, E., 2005, Organic Farming in Australia, in Willer, H. & Yussefi, M., 2005, The World of Organic Agriculture, Statistics and Emerging Trends, International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), Bonn. Wynen, E., 2006, Organic Farming in Australia, Willer, H. & Yussefi, M., 2006, The World of Organic Agriculture, Statistics and Emerging Trends, International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), Bonn. Wynen, E., 2007, Organic Farming Australia [sic], in Willer, H. & Yussefi, M., 2007, The World of Organic Agriculture, Statistics and Emerging Trends, International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), Bonn, Germany & Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Frick, Switzerland. Wynen, E., 2008, Organic Farming in Australia, in Willer, H., Yussefi-Menzler, M., & Sorensen, N., 2008, The World of Organic Agriculture, Statistics and Emerging Trends, International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), Bonn, Germany & Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Frick, Switzerland. Ye, J., 2008, personal communication, Information Services, State Library of NSW, Sydney, NSW. citation: Paull, John (2008) The Lost History of Organic Farming in Australia. Journal of Organic Systems, 3 (2), pp. 2-17. document_url: http://orgprints.org/15089/1/15089new.pdf