“This is what I think my grandfather and father understood most: when individuals understand what needs to happen and how to do it, we’re unstoppable. That’s what changes the world.”
This week we are releasing a conversation with Maria Rodale about her family’s early history in the U.S. organic movement. I was surprised to learn that her grandfather, J.I. Rodale was not a farmer, but rather motivated by multiple early deaths in the family pushing him toward the question: what determines health?
Two famous Organic farming books published in the early 1940’s influenced J.I.’s thinking: An Agricultural Testament by Albert Howard and The Living Soil by Lady Eve Balfour. From these books, and through personal correspondence with Howard, he found an answer to his question: health is ecological and it starts in the soil.
Maria explained that her grandfather was primarily a businessman. He admired Rockefeller and the “rags to riches” ideas promoted by Horatio Alger of the time. After the depression he wanted wealth and independence so he bought a farm first in Connecticut, then settled in Emmaus, Pennsylvania to be close to an electronics business he ran with his brother, but also to have a big garden from which to feed his family.
“He [J.I. Rodale] was funny and rude – he wasn’t afraid to say what he thought. He was not a gardener or a farmer. He was always in a suit or shirt sleeves. He just was filled with joy, laughter, and lots of crazy ideas.
“I grew up on his organic farm, and it was just a magical, wonderful place to grow up. They were artists. Also, my grandmother was a painter. There was a sculpture garden, beautiful landscaping, and lots of music and art that filled the house. It wasn’t like they were hippies. In fact, at first, they were appalled by the hippie movement, until they realized that they were helping them spread the word. Then my grandfather fell in love with them.”
– Maria Rodale about her grandparents
In 1942, J.I. Rodale launched the famous Organic Gardening and Farming Magazine, the most widely read gardening magazine in the world. The timing was perfect, a third of households started “Victory Gardens” during WWII, an idea promoted by the federal government to help save food for the troops.
After the war, J.I. established the Soil and Health Foundation, which later became the Rodale Institute, in order to research and promote organic farming methods. Maria was nine when her grandfather died in 1971 at the age of 73.
The first Organic Farming and Gardening Magazine included an article by Charles Darwin on Vegetable Mold and Earthworms!
J.I.’s foundation was renamed the Rodale Institute and moved to its current location in Kutztown, PA by Maria’s father, Bob Rodale. His goal was to research long-term, side-by-side trials comparing organic and conventional methods.
Bob hired a respected agronomist named Dick Harwood to determine how long chemically farmed land required to “regenerate”. Over time, the long-term data also showed that organic systems increase soil carbon, improve water retention, enhance resilience in drought and flooding, and could match or exceed profitability over chemical systems.
The trials continue to this day, incorporating variables like no-till versus low-till and different fertility inputs (green manures/cover crops vs. animal manures).
Bob Rodale, Maria’s father.
“What I didn’t know, what I learned from interviewing Eliot Coleman for my book, was that Eliot had taken my father and a couple of other people on a tour of organic gardens in Europe. This was a postcard I got and didn’t realize what it was. It was from his trip in Europe.”
– Maria Rodale about her father in episode #265 of the podcast
Maria has spent a lot of time thinking about the growth of the organic movement and simultaneous resistance of some farmers to transition. Through focus groups she found that chemical farmers receive their information primarily from seed and chemical suppliers.
Chemical companies teach farmers the narrative that the U.S. needs to “feed the world,” providing moral validation for the increased use of their chemicals.
Plus, the U.S. government continues to heavily subsidize chemical commodity production, much of which feeds cars in the form of biofuels or goes to animals in confinement. Farmers are caught in a volume-driven trap: produce more to survive, which depresses prices further and increases dependency on the chemicals.
Maria says the psychological barrier to converting to organic farming is significant. For an older farmer, transitioning to organic means admitting decades of harm. They are also risking economic hardship by leaving the immense financial support the chemical system receives.
“Come visit at the Rodale Institute. We’ve expanded it to include, obviously, GMOs, because we want to compare best-practice chemical farming to best-practice organic. We have no-till versus low-till plots. We’re testing tillage.
“Then we also have what I call vegan organic, which is green mulches versus animal manure or brown mulches and fertilizers. We’re doing all these variables and testing the water as it runs off. From this study, people have come from all around the world to see it and to learn from it, and it’s been replicated around the world as well in other places.
“We were one of the first to discover that organically farmed soil stores more carbon than chemical soil. It is definitely more resilient in times of drought and flood because the soil is more absorbent. It’s alive, of course, and it’s also more profitable for farmers.”
– Maria Rodale
Maria’s book, Organic Manifesto, argues that organic farming can heal ecosystems and feed populations. While the awareness and scientific evidence of the harms of ultra-processed food has increased, the regulatory backing of the chemical system persists.
For Maria, Organic, at its best, aligns with how she grew up knowing it: soil carefully tended by the farmer and food prepared with love. This is what can ultimately heal and connect us all.
Linley
