Albert Howard and the decolonization of science : from the Raj to organic farming

The decolonization of certain environmental narratives runs parallel with the fall of the British Empire. While the idea of a ‘household of nature’ developed by empire foresters in colonial India merged with mainstream ideas of ecology, certain shades of this scientific narrative did not make the successful jump from imperial to democratic scientific circles with the same ease. This is particularly the case with environmental ideas that revolved around the ‘Law of Return’ that formed the basis of the organic farming movement pioneered by Albert Howard. If, as Roy Macleod points out, ‘knowledge has been a companion of commerce, and both have followed the flag’, then we can see how the advocates of wholeness after the Second World War began the process of separating knowledge of commerce from knowledge of the flag, in this case imperialism.1 Drawing heavily on romanticism and the observation of Indian culture, Howard published widely in scientific journals and his work soon resonated with a broad popular audience scattered throughout the British Empire and elsewhere. This chapter traces the development of Howard’s ideas within its imperial laboratory, and then examines how one journal in particular, the Organic Farming Digest, absorbed and circulated these narratives to farmers, gardeners, and amateur ‘health food’ enthusiasts. The Organic Farming Digest, founded in 1946, was the first journal to use the word ‘organic’ in its title and bridged the work of imperial scientists, politicians, and amateur enthusiasts.