Extracts from a History of the Organic Agriculture Movement in Australia

Summary

Australia’s involvement in the organic movement has proceeded in four district waves of activity. The First Wave (1920s & 1930s) was that of the Australian anthroposophists who joined Rudolf Steiner’s Agricultural Experimental Circle of Anthroposophic Farmers and Gardeners and culminated with the ‘coming out’ of biodynamic agriculture in 1938 with Ehrenfried Pfeiffer’s book Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening and in Australia with Bob Williams presenting the first public lecture on biodynamics at the home of Walter Burley and Marion Mahoney Griffin. The Second Wave of organic agriculture in Australia (1940s & 1950s) is anchored by the coining of the term ‘organic farming’ in 1940, in England and it saw the founding of the first associations in Australia dedicated to the advocacy of organics. The Australian Organic Farming and Gardening Society (AOFGS) was founded in 1944 in Sydney and preceded the UK's Soil Association by two years. The Third Wave (1960s & 1970s) is anchored by the publication of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring in 1962 which breathed new life into the organics movement worldwide. Many new associations and periodicals for the promotion, advocacy and exploration of organics appeared in the two decades that followed Carson. The Fourth Wave (1980s to present) is anchored by the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine in 1986 which dramatically refocused the world’s attention on the safety of its food supply. This Fourth Wave of the organics movement witnessed the maturing of organics thinking in Australia and the development of the apparatus of organics governance. The first organics certifiers were established along with the establishment of standards, logos, labeling and product differentiation.