The Evolution and Growth of Organic Farming

Organic farming today is a global movement backed by policy, research, and millions of consumers – but it didn’t start that way. For much of the 20th century, it was considered a fringe idea, dismissed by mainstream agriculture as impractical or unscientific. Understanding how organic farming developed from an early-century philosophy into a regulated, internationally recognized system helps explain why it has become so central to conversations about sustainable food production.

The roots: early 20th-century pioneers
The turning point: environmental awakening in the 1960s
IFOAM and the internationalization of organic farming
Growth through the 1990s and the rise of consumer demand
The four principles: a value framework for global organic farming
Health
Ecology
Fairness
Care
From movement to global sector: where organic farming stands today

The roots: early 20th-century pioneers

The concepts of organic agriculture were shaped in the early 1900s by a small group of thinkers who were alarmed by the direction industrial farming was taking. Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher, introduced the concept of biodynamic agriculture in 1924 through his lectures in Koberwitz, Poland. His approach was holistic – it emphasized the relationship between soil, plants, animals, and cosmic cycles, treating the farm as a living organism.

Around the same time, Sir Albert Howard, a British agronomist working in India, developed the Indore method of composting – a controlled decomposition process that produces nutrient-rich compost to restore soil fertility. His 1940 book, An Agricultural Testament, became a foundational text for the organic movement. Howard’s time in India profoundly shaped his outlook: he gained inspiration from traditional and sustainable farming practices he encountered there and advocated for their adoption in the West.

In the United States, J.I. Rodale picked up this thread and brought it to a wider audience through his magazine Organic Farming and Gardening, launched in 1942. Rodale popularized the term “organic” and gave the movement a consumer-facing identity.

These early figures were not simply anti-chemical. Their concerns were far-reaching – they questioned whether industrial agriculture could sustain soil health, human health, or ecological balance over the long term. Their work laid an intellectual foundation that would matter enormously decades later.

The turning point: environmental awakening in the 1960s

Organic farming remained a niche concern through the mid-20th century. The Green Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s brought high-yield crop varieties, synthetic fertilizers, and powerful pesticides – and with them, dramatic increases in food production. Governments and agricultural institutions embraced this model enthusiastically.

The shift began with a book. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962, galvanized public concern about agrichemicals and linked the organic movement to the broader environmental movement. Carson documented how pesticides like DDT were moving through food chains and harming wildlife and human health. The book reached millions of readers and sparked policy debates that led to the eventual banning of DDT in many countries.

In the 1960s and 70s, increased environmental awareness and critiques of industrial agriculture fueled broader public demand for natural, chemical-free food in both the United States and Europe. Farmers, consumers, and environmental advocates began looking for alternatives – and organic farming offered a coherent answer.

IFOAM and the internationalization of organic farming

The scattered national organic movements of the 1960s needed coordination. The beginnings of IFOAM – Organics International trace back to a meeting in Versailles, France, in 1972. Roland Chevriot, president of France’s Nature et Progrès, envisioned the need for organic movements to exchange scientific data and coordinate their work across borders. He invited key figures – including Lady Eve Balfour (founder of the UK Soil Association) and Jerome Goldstein of the Rodale Institute – to launch what became the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM).

The formal international organic movement began on 5 November 1972 at that meeting in Versailles. IFOAM became the global umbrella organization that sets international standards, policies, definitions, and positions around organic agriculture, consulting with its members who cover the whole spectrum of the sector across most countries in the world.

One of IFOAM’s earliest and most significant achievements was developing the IFOAM Basic Standards – a set of principles and criteria that national and regional organic certification programs could use as a reference point. This was critical because it gave organic farming credibility and consistency at a time when the term “organic” was being used loosely and without regulation.

The structuring of a single organic food market – along with the unification of production standards and the implementation of a certification process – was decisive in the boom that followed. The European Community’s regulation EC 2092/91, introduced in 1991, was a landmark moment: for the first time, a major regulatory body formally defined and regulated organic production.

Growth through the 1990s and the rise of consumer demand

The 1990s marked the decade when organic farming moved from an activist-led movement to a mainstream market force. Consumer demand for organically produced goods showed strong growth since the 1990s, providing market incentives for farmers across a broad range of products. In the United States, the passage of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 and the subsequent publication of national organic rules in 2000 gave the industry a formal regulatory structure.

Greater environmental awareness, coupled with concerns over the health impacts of pesticide residues and genetically modified crops, fostered the growth of the organic sector. Organic food sales increased steadily from the late 20th century. In the United States, retail sales increased from $20.39 billion in 2008 to $47.9 billion in 2019, while sales in Europe reached more than $52 billion in 2019.

In the ten-year period from 2000 to 2010, the global market for organic products increased over three-fold – from an estimated 14 billion euros in 2000 to 45 billion euros in 2010. This growth was driven not just by health-conscious consumers but by food scares, food safety concerns, and growing media attention on the environmental costs of conventional agriculture.

The supply side responded. From the 1970s, when organic markets first emerged in the United States, until the mid-2000s, most organic retail sales occurred in natural food stores. Conventional grocery retailers have since become the most popular outlet for organic food, accounting for 55.6 percent of sales in 2021. This transition from specialty stores to supermarket shelves reflected how thoroughly organic farming had entered the mainstream.

The four principles: a value framework for global organic farming

As the organic sector grew and globalized, there was a need for a clear philosophical foundation – something that would unify the movement beyond certification checklists. The IFOAM General Assembly formally adopted the four principles of organic agriculture in September 2005. As a result of a worldwide participatory stakeholder process, the principles of health, ecology, fairness, and care are now worldwide considered as the basis from which organic agriculture grows and develops.

Health

Organic agriculture should sustain and enhance the health of soil, plant, animal, human, and planet as one and indivisible. This principle connects soil health to human health – not as a metaphor, but as a direct ecological relationship. Healthy soil produces nutrient-rich crops; nutrient-rich crops support healthy people. Organic farming, under this principle, is an investment in preventive health at every level of the food chain.

Ecology

Organic agriculture should be based on living ecological systems and cycles – working with them, emulating them, and helping to sustain them. The principle of ecology implies that organic agriculture should be rooted in living ecosystems and adapted to local conditions, relying less on external inputs and focusing more on reuse, recycling, and efficient use of ecosystem services. In practical terms, this means crop rotation, composting, natural pest management, and biodiversity conservation.

Fairness

Organic agriculture should build on relationships that ensure fairness with regard to the common environment and life opportunities. Fairness is characterized by equity, respect, justice, and stewardship of the shared world – among people and in their relations to other living beings. This principle extends organic farming beyond the farm gate: it includes fair wages for farm workers, fair prices for producers, and fair access to resources for communities in the developing world.

Care

Organic agriculture should be managed in a precautionary and responsible manner to protect the health and well-being of current and future generations and the environment. The care principle asks farmers and policymakers to take a long-term view – to assess new technologies cautiously and to prioritize long-term ecological stability over short-term productivity gains. It is the principle that most directly addresses the mistakes of chemical-intensive farming: acting first, assessing consequences later.

From movement to global sector: where organic farming stands today

The trajectory of organic farming over the last century is remarkable. Organic farming grew from 0.1% of usable agricultural surface in 1985 to almost 4% in the early 21st century. IFOAM, which began with a handful of organizations, now has over 800 members from about 120 countries and territories.

In India, the National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP), launched in 2001, established a national regulatory framework covering crop production, animal husbandry, and food processing. The Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), introduced in 2015, further encouraged cluster-based organic farming with financial support for certification and market access – recognizing that India’s traditional farming knowledge aligns naturally with organic principles.

IFOAM also introduced the concept of Organic 3.0 in 2013 – a framework designed to move organic farming beyond third-party certification toward a broader culture of continuous improvement, transparent integrity, and true-value pricing. Rather than treating organic standards as a compliance checklist, Organic 3.0 envisions a farming system that proactively builds alliances, innovates constantly, and measures success against ecological, social, and economic outcomes simultaneously.

The story of organic farming’s development is ultimately a story about who gets to define what “good farming” means. For most of the 20th century, that definition was dominated by productivity metrics – yield per hectare, output per labor hour, return on chemical input. Organic farming proposed a different set of metrics: soil health, biodiversity, long-term ecological balance, and community wellbeing. It took decades of advocacy, environmental crises, consumer pressure, and regulatory effort to bring those metrics into mainstream agricultural policy – but the trajectory is clear.

What do you think? As organic farming continues to scale globally, can it maintain the ecological and social values that defined its origins – or does expansion inevitably compromise its core principles? And given that many traditional farming communities in developing countries have always practiced what we now call “organic” methods, should they receive formal recognition and support within international organic frameworks?

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Table of Contents

The roots: early 20th-century pioneers 🔗

The turning point: environmental awakening in the 1960s 🔗

IFOAM and the internationalization of organic farming 🔗

Growth through the 1990s and the rise of consumer demand 🔗

The four principles: a value framework for global organic farming 🔗

Health 🔗

Ecology 🔗

Fairness 🔗

Care 🔗

From movement to global sector: where organic farming stands today 🔗