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Lady Eve Balfour and the British Organic Food and Farming Movement

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Lady Eve Balfour and the British Organic Food and Farming Movement 1 Lady Eve Balfour and the British organic food and farming movement Erin Gill PhD thesis Department of History & Welsh History Aberystwyth University November 2010 2 Summary: Lady Eve Balfour and the British organic food and farming movement This thesis explores the career of Lady Eve Balfour (1898-1990), the founder of the Soil Association, and her contribution to the British organic food and farming movement, as it emerged into public view after the Second World War. Eve Balfour's agricultural education at Reading University College during the First World War and her years as an owner- occupying farmer during the 1920s and 1930s in Suffolk are described, including her involvement in the tithe protest movement. A range of interests pursued by Eve Balfour during the inter-war period is also discussed, including novel writing and Spiritualist practices. Her 'conversion' - as war loomed - to compost-based humus farming and her corresponding rejection of inorganic fertilisers is examined, as is her decision to convert her farms into a research project to demonstrate the superiority of organic farming methods. The arguments contained in Eve Balfour's 1943 book, The Living Soil, are presented as well as evidence about advertisements and BBC radio broadcasts that drew attention to the book. The founding and primary activities of the Soil Association from 1946 through the early 1980s are outlined and the nature of the organisation considered, with emphasis placed on members' central belief in the relationship between agricultural methods and human health. The organisation's ambivalent response to science is also discussed. Eve Balfour's unconventional, New Age religious belief is explored, with questions raised about whether similar beliefs were held by other key early Soil Association figures. The impact of Eve Balfour's reputation for unconventional religious belief and the Soil Association's associated reputation for 'muck and mystery' are assessed. The tenacity of Eve Balfour in leading the organisation despite an increasingly-powerful body of support for industrial farming is emphasised, while the opportunity her New Age religious belief offered critics to dismiss the organisation she led is also acknowledged. 3 Contents Acknowledgements p. 4 Introduction p. 5 Chapter 1 The inter war years – parallel worlds: the nascent British p. 22 organic movement and Eve Balfour's early farming career Chapter 2 The Second World War, Eve Balfour's organic conversion p. 73 and The Living Soil Chapter 3 Eve Balfour and the Soil Association, 1945-1983 p. 111 Chapter 4 Eve Balfour, the Soil Association, Science and Religion p. 169 Conclusion p. 232 Bibliography p. 239 Appendix A Balfour family correspondence relating to publication of p. 262 The Paper Chase Appendix B Eve Balfour's war-time assistance to Jewish refugees p. 264 Appendix C Partial list of press coverage relating to the compost p. 271 versus chemicals debate during the second half of 1943 and first half of 1944 Appendix D Details and extracts of monthly column during late 1940s/ p.273 early 1950s by Eve Balfour in National Review Illustrations Eve, New Bells Farm (1920s), from Betty Balfour's photo album p. 21 Boots advert featuring quote from The Living Soil in Farmers' Weekly p. 72 Cover of first edition of The Living Soil p. 110 Title page of Co-operation p. 168 4 Acknowledgements A great many people assisted me in locating primary sources, in some cases lending me documents of enormous use. In particular, I wish to thank Evelyn and Michael Brander for their hospitality and kindness, welcoming me into their home – more than once – and allowing me to read from Lady Eve Balfour's personal papers, as well as offering their opinions and recollections. I am also greatly indebted to Edna and Fred Stilwell, for their memories and for passing on their collection of Mother Earth. Having ongoing access to Mother Earth allowed me a deeper understanding of Soil Association developments and debates than would otherwise have been possible. Similarly, I am grateful to Mary Langman's family for allowing me to read her unpublished manuscript of Eve Balfour's life (completed by Charles Dowding after Mary's death). My heartfelt thanks also to Marion and Hugh Wilson for allowing me to photocopy a portion of Enid Wilson's wonderful, private memoir. I am also hugely grateful to the Soil Association – and its invariably friendly and helpful staff - for allowing me access to its archive. My thanks also to Carol Twinch for her hospitality, generosity with archival material, and assistance during my initial visit to Suffolk. I also thank Caroline Younger for her recollections and for allowing me to look at, and make use of, images from Betty Balfour's photo album. I am grateful to several individuals for pointing me in the direction of, and/or providing me with, important secondary sources, including: Philip Conford, Ben de la Mare, Horace Herring, Richard Moore-Colyer and Geraldine Burt. I also thank Philip Conford for his moral support and his thoughtful feedback and suggestions. My thanks to Dr Sîan Nicholas, my supervisor, who has offered much calm, wise comment and practical assistance. I thank Aberystwyth University for awarding me a studentship – without it I would not have undertaken a doctorate and would have limited my efforts to an MPhil. Many members of the Department of History and Welsh History have been helpful and I wish to thank, in particular, Philip Schofield, Michael Roberts and Jessica Gibbs. I am also grateful for the camaraderie and support offered by members of the British Agricultural History Society and the European Environmental History Society. The encouragement of many friends has been crucial. In particular, I would like to thank Julia Parry, Emily Wilkinson and Mel Allwood. Finally, I dedicate this thesis to the memory of my mother, Jacquelyn Luster Gill, and to my father, Richard Gill. 5 Introduction: Lady Eve Balfour and the British organic food and farming movement The final years of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first have witnessed growing unease about the consequences of ‘modern’, industrial agriculture. Concern about the impacts of intensive, chemical-based and factory-like approaches to farming has spiralled in the face of growing evidence of negative impacts on human health, ecological functioning and, most recently, food security. In Europe, these concerns started to influence policy makers from the 1980s onward, when efforts began to be made to alter the regulatory framework in ways that might encourage more sustainable methods of farming.1 One of the, if not the, most significant reactions to this loss of faith in ‘modern’ farming was a sharp and sustained rise in organic food sales in the UK, many other European nations, North America and Japan during the last years of the last century and until the global economic crisis toward the end of 2008.2 Increasing consumer appetite in much of the affluent, developed world for the products of organic agriculture was predicated on their image as a safe, honest and environmentally-sustainable alternative to conventionally-grown food. Although organic food only accounted for about 1% of UK retail food sales in 2009 and just over 4% of UK farmland is managed organically,3 such figures nevertheless represent an explosion in the marketing, public profile, consumption and, to a lesser extent, the production of organic food in the UK. Organic food sales in the UK grew eleven-fold between 1995 and 2008, increasing in value from £140 million to £2.1 billion.4 Until the double-digit growth in organic food sales of the late 1990s, the UK organic food and farming movement was of almost no political or economic consequence. Little was known about its current state and very little had been written about its history. However, as 1 Susanne Padel and Nicholas Lampkin, 'The Development of Governmental Support for Organic Farming in Europe', in Organic Farming: An International History, ed by William Lockeretz (Cabi, 2007), pp. 93-122. 2 Sales of organic food declined in the UK in 2009 for the first time since the Soil Association began measuring the size of the market in the early 1990s. In 2009, sales totalled £1.8 billion, representing a 12.9% reduction on 2008's £2.1 billion. 2010 Organic Market Report (Soil Association, 2010), p.10. 3 In January 2009, 4.3% of UK farmland – or 743,516 hectares - was under organic production. (2010 Organic Market Report, p.19). The primary reason for the small area of UK agricultural land devoted to organic farming is the failure of large-scale arable farmers to convert to organic production, particularly those in the eastern counties of England (Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire). More than half of the organic food consumed in the UK today is imported. The work of Padel and Lampkin implies that the UK government's policy of minimum compliance with EU requirements to support the organic sector is a key factor (Padel and Lampkin, pp. 93-122). Many EU member states have larger proportions of their farm land under organic proportion than does the UK, including Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Austria, Portugal, Sweden, Slovakia and Slovenia (based on 2007 data). Elisabeth Rohner-Thielen, 'Area Under Organic Farming Increased by 7.4% between 2007 and 2008 in the EU-27' (Eurostat, 2010). 4 2010 Organic Market Report, p.10. Scale of growth (ie. eleven fold) adjusted for UK inflation during this period. 6 the movement’s profile has grown, interest in its origins and history has increased and the number of historical accounts of the British organic food and farming movement, though few, is growing. The intellectual origins of the movement have been the subject of academic discussion, but there has been far less examination of the ways in which the founding concepts of the organic movement were, or were not, put into practice.
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