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Article: Organic Farming
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ORGANIC FARMING
ORGANIC FARMING
coalesced as a movement in the United States in the 1940s with the work of J. I. Ro-dale of Emmaus, Pennsylvania, who followed the British agricultural botanist Sir Albert Howard in the belief that healthy soil produces healthy people. Beginning in 1942, Rodale published
Rodale's Organic Gardening,
a magazine dedicated to organic gardening and farming, which drew subscribers ranging from home gardeners to truck farmers. Spurning synthetic fertilizers, he advocated natural soil-builders, such as composted organic materials and ground rock. He and his disciples reacted against synthetic pesticides such as DDT, and livestock antibiotics such as penicillin, ...