M. Reed, Fight the future! How the contemporary campaigns of the UK organic movement have arisen from their composting of the past, SOCIOL RUR, 41(1), 2001, pp. 131
This paper explores the discourse of the British organic movement and the e
lements of continuity that stem from the early part of the twentieth centur
y. Using political discourse analysis the paper tracks the emergence of the
discourse of organic farming from a shared concern about the soil in the 1
930s. These elements are combined in a formal structure in the late 1940s,
with the Soil Association being formed. The new Soil Association resolved i
ts internal tensions by agreeing on a programme of scientific research that
was ultimately unsuccessful. This stagnation was ended in the early 1970s
with the mutation of the discourse, which emphasized the moral superiority
of organic farming. The paper contends that many of the current positions a
nd projects of Soil Association can be traced to recurrences within the dis
course.