Sir Albert Howard CIE (8 December 1873 – 20 October 1947) was an English botanist, and the first westerner to document and publish the Vedic Indian techniques of sustainable agriculture, now better known as organic farming. After spending considerable time learning from Indian peasants and the pests present in their soil, he called these two his professors. He was a principal figure in the early organic movement. He is considered by many in the English-speaking world to have been, along with Rudolf Steiner and Eve Balfour, one of the key evangelists of ancient Indian techniques of organic agriculture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Howard
Sir Albert Howard was the founder of the organic farming movement. He worked for 25 years as an agricultural investigator in India, first as Agricultural Adviser to States in Central India and Rajputana, then as Director of the Institute of Plant Industry at Indore, where he developed the famed Indore composting process, which put the ancient art of composting on a firm scientific basis.
He adopted the best teachers: Nature -- "the supreme farmer", India's peasants (whom he regarded as his prime "customers"), and the pests and weeds the scientists were committed to fighting with an ever-widening array of poisons, but which Howard called his "Professors of Agriculture". He saw pests in the context of Nature's use for them as censors of soil fertility levels and unsuitable crops growing in unsuitable conditions. He found that when the unsuitable conditions were corrected the pests departed. His crops were virtually immune to pest attack, and so was his livestock.
http://www.journeytoforever.org/farm_library/howard.html
The work of Sir Albert Howard is of utmost importance for the future of humanity on this planet.
What is a big problem today was anticipated by the genius of Sir Albert Howard early in the twentieth century. Through his research in India, about the ancient techniques used by local farmers, he could propose the scientific basis of a globally recognized movement in the world, which is the Organic Agriculture. This movement aims to produce healthy food in harmony with the conservation of natural resources. This is of fundamental importance for man's survival on the planet.
Marcelo Laurino Agronomist Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply Piracicaba / SP - Brazil
https://trevorchalkley.wixsite.com/albert-howard/albert-howard-society
An Agricultural Testament is Sir Albert Howard's best-known publication, and remains one of the seminal works in the history of organic farming agricultural movement. Dedicated to his first wife and co-worker Gabrielle, herself a plant physiologist, it focuses on the nature and management of soil fertility, and notably explores composting. At a time when modern, chemical-based industrialized agriculture was just beginning to radically alter food production, it advocated natural processes rather than man-made inputs as the superior approach to farming. It was first published in England in 1940, with the first American edition in 1943.
