Organic History Lesson from Zambia

".. We tend to forget the antiquity of organic farming methods, wheat was grown organically as early as 4,000 years ago in the northern regions of Africa in the fertile lands bordering the Nile.
As farmers aspired to get higher crop yields, and as economic pressures were brought upon farmers to do this, a gradual change in agricultural methods came about in the farming lands of England in the late 1940's and 1950's.

Farmers gave up spreading manure, they gave up organic crop rotation, sowing legumes as a green manure crop to boost the nitrogen content of the soil, and they gave up making compost.
In place of these organic farming methods, the new approach was to apply synthetic fertilizers to boost plant growth. This produced higher crop yields, and sales of agricultural products increased. To protect the crops, another innovation was implemented : the application of agro-chemicals to plants while they were still growing on the lands, to eliminate fungus and insects."

Read the article