Organic farming is a form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost, and biological pest control. Depending on whose definition is used, organic farming uses fertilizers and pesticides (which include herbicides, insecticides and fungicides) if they are considered natural (such as bone meal from animals or pyrethrin from flowers), but it excludes or strictly limits the use of various methods (including synthetic petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides; plant growth regulators such as hormones; antibiotic use in livestock; genetically modified organisms;[1] human sewage sludge; and nanomaterials.[2]) for reasons including sustainability, openness, independence, health, and safety.

Organic agricultural methods are internationally regulated and legally enforced by many nations, based in large part on the standards set by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), an international umbrella organization for organic farming organizations established in 1972.[3] The USDA National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) definition as of April 1995 is:

Organic agriculture is an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony."[4]

Since 1990 the market for organic food and other products has grown rapidly, reaching $63 billion worldwide in 2012.[5]:25 This demand has driven a similar increase in organically managed farmland which has grown over the years 2001-2011 at a compounding rate of 8.9% per annum.[6] As of 2011, approximately 37,000,000 hectares (91,000,000 acres) worldwide were farmed organically, representing approximately 0.9 percent of total world farmland (2009).[7]

Traditional farming (of many kinds) was the original type of agriculture, and has been practiced for thousands of years. Forest gardening, a traditional food production system which dates from prehistoric times, is thought to be the world's oldest and most resilient agroecosystem.[8]

Artificial fertilizers had been created during the 18th century, initially with superphosphates and then ammonia-based fertilizers mass-produced using the Haber-Bosch process developed during World War I. These early fertilizers were cheap, powerful, and easy to transport in bulk. Similar advances occurred in chemical pesticides in the 1940s, leading to the decade being referred to as the 'pesticide era'.[9] But these new agricultural techniques, while beneficial in the short term, had serious longer term side effects such as soil compaction, soil erosion, and declines in overall soil fertility, along with health concerns about toxic chemicals entering the food supply.[10]:10

Soil biology scientists began in the late 1800s and early 1900s to develop theories on how new advancements in biological science could be used in agriculture as a way to remedy these side effects, while still maintaining higher production. In Central Europe Rudolf Steiner, whose Lectures on Agriculture were published in 1925.[11][12][13]:[14] created biodynamic agriculture, an early version of what we now call organic agriculture.[15][16][17] Steiner was motivated by spiritual rather than scientific considerations.[13]:1719

In the late 1930s and early 1940s Sir Albert Howard and his wife Gabrielle Howard, both accomplished botanists, developed organic agriculture. The Howards were influenced by their experiences with traditional farming methods in India, biodynamic, and their formal scientific education.[11] Sir Albert Howard is widely considered to be the "father of organic farming", because he was the first to apply scientific knowledge and principles to these various traditional and more natural methods.[18]:45 In the United States another founder of organic agriculture was J.I. Rodale. In the 1940s he founded both a working organic farm for trials and experimentation, The Rodale Institute, and founded the Rodale Press to teach and advocate organic to the wider public. Further work was done by Lady Eve Balfour in the United Kingdom, and many others across the world.

There is some controversy on where the term "organic" as it applies to agriculture first derived. One side claims term 'organic agriculture' was coined by Lord Northbourne, an agriculturalist influenced by Steiner's biodynamic approach, in 1940. This side claims the term as meaning the farm should be viewed as a living organism and stems from Steiner's non scientific anthroposophy.[19] The second claim is that "organic" derives from the work of early soil scientists that were developing what was then called "humus farming". Thus in this more scientific view the use of organic matter to improve the humus content of soils is the basis for the term and this view was popularized by Howard and Rodale. Since the early 1940s both camps have tended to merge.[20][21]

Increasing environmental awareness in the general population in modern times has transformed the originally supply-driven organic movement to a demand-driven one. Premium prices and some government subsidies attracted farmers. In the developing world, many producers farm according to traditional methods which are comparable to organic farming but are not certified and may or may not include the latest scientific advancements in organic agriculture. In other cases, farmers in the developing world have converted to modern organic methods for economic reasons.[22]

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Organic farming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia