Sir Albert Howard – Compost Pioneer
Back in the early 20th century, Sir Albert Howard (often called the father of modern organic agriculture) brought the Indore method of hot composting from the farms of India and China to a ‘western’ audience. Hot composting, as we now practise it, is a direct descendant of that work.
Howard was born in Shropshire, England, in 1873 to a farming family. Though he studied biology and botany and worked in mycology (study of fungi) and the research of plant disease, growing up on a farm continued to inform all of his work. He believed any scientific learning about agriculture and horticulture needed to be applicable to functioning farms.
Having seen the effects of industrialisation on the farms of his home country (reduced use of animals and increase of imported fuels for machinery, rising use of artificial fertilisers, dependence on herbicides and pesticides and a general loss of soil heath and condition – sound familiar?) Howard was inspired by farms he visited and studied in India.
He described the peasant farmers of India and China, as well as the diseases of soil, as his great teachers.
He found healthy plants grown in healthy soils are hardly affected by disease. He came to view plant disease as a helpful warning, telling us to attend to our soil (not to try to kill the disease organism).
“The wheel of life is made up of two processes,” Howard wrote in ‘An Agricultural Testament’ (1940), “growth on one side, and decay on the other… Agriculture must always be balanced. If we speed up growth, we must accelerate decay.”
Reading Howard today I am struck by how his thinking is so up-to-date. He wrote about the amazing relationships between roots and fungi, the importance of multi-species cropping (as opposed to monocultures), integrating animals into farming systems and the essential role of the soil microbiome. In many ways he was 100 years ahead of his time.
Howard saw how Chinese and Indian farmers used decaying plant material and manures to make humus rich material (compost) that kept soils fertile, despite being continuously farmed for thousands of years. Howard developed these composting processes further on a research station and farm at Indore, India, and published guides and books for a ‘western’ audience.
These books struck a chord in many industrial nations, where people were beginning to worry about the effects of industrial farming on the health of soils and the people dependent on the food they provided. The organic farming movement emerged out of this inspiration and concern, spurred on by champions like Lady Eve Balfour in the UK and J.I. Rodale in the US.
As backyard composters we owe much to Sir Albert Howard, for the composting techniques he brought to light and the questions he asked about healthy soil and stable agriculture.
Over the next few weeks - in honour of Sir Albert Howard - I’m planning to explore the uses of animal manures in our gardens and compost making.
AUTHOR: JOEL MEADOWS
Joel Meadows works with *Yes In My Back Yard, (YIMBY), a community-scale composting initiative in Castlemaine and surrounds. Send questions or comments to hello@yimbycompost.com or to book in for a compost workshop!
This was first published in the Midland Express on 1 October 2024