Fertilizer Review magazine called organic farmers "witch doctors" in 1951. When I was teaching an introductory writing class at the...

Raw peach pits and moldy peanuts contain toxic chemicals. But does that mean pesticides are safe? By the 1970s, Americans were bombarded...

One definition of "organic" is "a carbon-containing molecule." But is that the only definition? As I mentioned in my post “How Health...

In the 1970s, organic food was attacked by nutritionists as a dangerous "food fad" Throughout history, most people have wanted to be...

Finally, a book that covers the connection between the counterculture and organic farming! What’s the connection between organic farming...

The Nearings made compost using an all-plant-based version of the Indore Method. Countless members of the counterculture first saw...

Helen and Scott Nearing grew all the vegetables they ate at their Vermont and Maine homesteads--all year round. When Helen and Scott...

Helen and Scott Nearing traded labor with their neighbors to build a sugar house on their Vermont homestead and made a living selling...

I appreciate Hannah Ritchie's optimism, but disagree about whether organic farming can feed the world. I’m always on the lookout for new...

This graph implies that it's impossible to feed the world with organic farming. But what data is it really based on? “Without the...

The Haber-Bosch process of fixing nitrogen produces a lot of fertilizer--but its first application was for weapons. Cut open one of the...

Biological nitrogen fixation fed the world until the end of the nineteenth century. What changed? Is it possible to feed the world’s...

When I was a student at The Ohio State University, I always wondered why Kottman Hall had so few windows. The legacies of the Cold War...

As the Korean Conflict heated up in 1950, farmers were warned about what might happen in a nuclear war. “The crippled plane with its...

On the surface, this just looks like a ranch-style house. But what's underground could destroy civilization. September 29, 2011—Rapid...

Louis Bromfield advertised his Malabar Farm produce as pesticide-free in the 1950s. Thank you to the Ohio Ecological Food and Farming...

While there's debate over who first coined the term "organic farming," J.I. Rodale was the one who popularized it. The debate over who...

This School of Living announcement from 1939 used the phrase "organic gardening" a year before Lord Northbourne. One of my favorite...

Alden and Ruth Stahr of New Jersey promoted organic farming in their 1950s newsletter, Normal Agriculture . Thank you again to NOFA-NJ...

After the devastating flood of 1902, Silver City's Big Ditch joined the list of soil erosion horror stories. “Today the Big Ditch is a...