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Patrick Holden, CBE is a UK organic dairy farmer, campaigner for sustainable food and farming, and co-founder with Anthony Rodale of U.K. The Sustainable Food Trust and U.S. Sustainable Food Alliance.
During his childhood Holden kept a variety of animals, ranging from mice and rabbits to budgerigars and myna birds, and would spend hours in his back garden studying the amphibians that migrated to the ponds he had dug as a boy.
In 1971, aged 20, Holden spent a year in the San Francisco Bay Area where he was influenced by the green movement. As a result, Holden returned to the UK and worked for a year on an intensive dairy farm in Hampshire before studying biodynamic agriculture at Emerson College (UK).
Holden then joined the back-to-the-land movement in 1973 and formed a community farm in Bwlchwernen, Wales. After the community dispersed, Holden continued to run the farm now known as Holden Farm Dairy - now the longest established organic dairy farm in Wales. Enterprises have included an 80 cow Ayrshire herd, the milk from which goes to produce Hafod, a cheddar style cheese; oats and peas; wheat for flour milling; and carrots which he grew for supermarkets for 25 years.
Alongside farming, Holden’s other work has included the development of organic standards and the market for organic foods, founding British Organic Farmers, trustee of the Soil Association, and director of the Soil Association (1995-2010). During Holden's 15 years in charge, the charity's staff rose from 5 to 180, and annual sales of organic produce in Britain rose from £50 million to £2 billion. [1] He is also a patron of the UK Biodynamic Agricultural Association and The Living Land Trust, as well as an advisor and participant in the Prince of Wales Terra Carta initiative.
In 2010 Holden founded the Sustainable Food Trust, an organisation based in Bristol, UK that works internationally to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable food systems. Key activities of the organisation include influencing government policy on sustainable agriculture; advocacy for true cost accounting; development of a common international framework [2] and metric for measuring on-farm sustainability; campaigning for the re-localisation of supply chains, including small abattoirs; [3] and linking healthy diets to sustainable food production. In founding the trust, Holden was partly aiming to bridge the divide between Organic and non organic farmers, which he regrets had become somewhat binary. [1]
Organic farming, also known as ecological farming or biological farming, is an agricultural system that uses fertilizers of organic origin such as compost manure, green manure, and bone meal and places emphasis on techniques such as crop rotation and companion planting. It originated early in the 20th century in reaction to rapidly changing farming practices. Certified organic agriculture accounts for 70 million hectares globally, with over half of that total in Australia. Biological pest control, mixed cropping, and the fostering of insect predators are encouraged. Organic standards are designed to allow the use of naturally-occurring substances while prohibiting or strictly limiting synthetic substances. For instance, naturally-occurring pesticides such as pyrethrin are permitted, while synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are generally prohibited. Synthetic substances that are allowed include, for example, copper sulfate, elemental sulfur, and veterinary drugs. Genetically modified organisms, nanomaterials, human sewage sludge, plant growth regulators, hormones, and antibiotic use in livestock husbandry are prohibited. Organic farming advocates claim advantages in sustainability, openness, self-sufficiency, autonomy and independence, health, food security, and food safety.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to organic gardening and farming:
Community-supported agriculture or cropsharing is a system that connects producers and consumers within the food system closer by allowing the consumer to subscribe to the harvest of a certain farm or group of farms. It is an alternative socioeconomic model of agriculture and food distribution that allows the producer and consumer to share the risks of farming. The model is a subcategory of civic agriculture that has an overarching goal of strengthening a sense of community through local markets.
The organic movement broadly refers to the organizations and individuals involved worldwide in the promotion of organic food and other organic products. It started during the first half of the 20th century, when modern large-scale agricultural practices began to appear.
Organic certification is a certification process for producers of organic food and other organic agricultural products. In general, any business directly involved in food production can be certified, including seed suppliers, farmers, food processors, retailers and restaurants. A lesser known counterpart is certification for organic textiles that includes certification of textile products made from organically grown fibres.
The Soil Association is a British registered charity focused on the effect of agriculture on the environment. It was established in 1946. Their activities include campaigning for local purchasing, public education on nutrition and certification of organic foods, and against intensive farming.
Lady Evelyn Barbara Balfour, was a British farmer, educator, organic farming pioneer, and a founding figure in the organic movement. She was one of the first women to study agriculture at an English university, graduating from the institution now known as the University of Reading.
Sir Albert Howard was an English botanist. His academic background might have been botany. While working in India he was generally considered a pathologist; this more than likely being the reason for his consistent observations of the value of compost applications being an increase in health. Howard was the first Westerner to document and publish the Indian techniques of sustainable agriculture. After spending considerable time learning from Indian peasants and the pests present in their soil, he called these two his professors. He was a principal figure in the early organic movement. He is considered by many in the English-speaking world to have been, along with Eve Balfour, one of the key advocates of ancient Indian techniques of organic agriculture.
Biodynamic agriculture is a form of alternative agriculture based on pseudo-scientific and esoteric concepts initially developed in 1924 by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925). It was the first of the organic farming movements. It treats soil fertility, plant growth, and livestock care as ecologically interrelated tasks, emphasizing spiritual and mystical perspectives.
The Biodynamic Federation Demeter International is the largest certification organization for biodynamic agriculture Its name is a reference to Demeter, the Greek goddess of grain and fertility. It is a non-profit umbrella organisation with 46 members organisations in 36 countries, and over participating 6,500 farmers around the world, representing both the global biodynamic movement and the Demeter certified biodynamic farms. The organization incorporates 19 certifying Demeter organizations, and the rest of the certification is done by the international certification committee.
Traditional farming was the original type of agriculture, and has been practiced for thousands of years. All traditional farming is now considered to be "organic farming" although at the time there were no known inorganic methods. For example, forest gardening, a fully organic food production system which dates from prehistoric times, is thought to be the world's oldest and most resilient agroecosystem. The industrial revolution introduced inorganic methods, most of which were not well developed and had serious side effects. An organic movement began in the 1940s as a reaction to agriculture's growing reliance on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. The history of this modern revival of organic farming dates back to the first half of the 20th century at a time when there was a growing reliance on these new synthetic, non-organic methods.
Ehrenfried Pfeiffer was a German scientist, soil scientist, leading advocate of biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophist and student of Rudolf Steiner.
Yeo Valley is a British dairy company that was founded in 1961. The headquarters are located in Somerset, United Kingdom. The Yeo Valley corporation is owned by the Mead family. In 2020, Yeo Valley Organic was the 48th biggest grocery brand in the United Kingdom and the third largest yogurt brand in the UK.
TheCountry Trust is a British education charity that connects children from areas of high social and economic disadvantage with the land, through visits to the working countryside and by promoting a better understanding of the links between food and farming.
Daron Joffe is a U.S. agribusiness and nonprofit executive who is prominent in the organic farming and biodynamic agriculture movements. He is the founder and president of Farmer D and author of award-winning book, Citizen Farmers - The Biodynamic Way to Grow Healthy Food, Build Thriving Communities and Give Back to the Earth.
Agriculture in the United Kingdom uses 69% of the country's land area, employs 1% of its workforce and contributes 0.5% of its gross value added. The UK currently produces about 54% of its domestic food consumption.
Animal-free agriculture, also known as plant agriculture, plant-based agriculture, veganic agriculture, stockfree farming, plant farming or veganic farming, consists of farming methods that do not use animals or animal products.
Organic farming in New Zealand began in the 1930s and became more popular in the 1980s. It has gained importance within the farming market, particularly with the recent involvement of larger companies, such as Wattie's.
The Duchy Home Farm is an organic farm operated by the Duchy of Cornwall. The farm is part of the gardens of Highgrove House, the country home of King Charles III. The produce is used as ingredients in Duchy Originals products, sold in vegetable boxes, and wholesaled to supermarkets and restaurants. King Charles is credited with using "pioneering agriculture techniques" to produce this organic food.
Richard Young was a British activist.