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Soil Association

Soil Association
Soil Association logo.png
Founded 1946
Founder Lady Eve Balfour, Jorian Jenks.
Type Charity
Focus Organic movement
Location
  • South Plaza, Marlborough Street, Bristol BS1 3NX, UK
Area served
United Kingdom
Method Campaigning and certification
Key people
Monty Don: President, Helen Browning: Chief Executive
Slogan healthy soil, healthy people, healthy planet
Website www.soilassociation.org
Charity Commission. Soil Association, registered charity no. 206862. 

The Soil Association is a charity based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1946, it has over 27,000 members today. Its activities include campaign work on issues including opposition to intensive farming, support for local purchasing and public education on nutrition; as well the certification of organic food. It developed the world's first organic certification system in 1967 – standards which have since widened to encompass agriculture, aquaculture, ethical trade, food processing, forestry, health & beauty, horticulture and textiles. Today it certifies over 80% of organic produce in the UK.

The Soil Association was formally registered on 3 May 1946, and in the next decade grew from a few hundred to over four thousand members. The founding members comprised notable figures from various fields, including doctors, dentists, farmers, journalists, engineers and horticulturalists.

According to its website:

The Soil Association was founded in part due to concerns over intensive agriculture and in particular the use of herbicides. A comparison between the two forms of farming in 1939 was called the Haughley Experiment. The headquarters of the Soil Association used to be at the nearby Haughley Green in Suffolk.

One of the founders of the Soil Association was Jorian Jenks, a former member of the British Union of Fascists (BUF), closely associated with Oswald Mosley. Jenks was for years the editorial secretary of the Association's journal "Mother Earth". During the late 1940s the Association involved far-right and even antisemitic elements, remnants of the defunct BUF, and was driven by far-right political ideas as much as ecological concerns. Following Jenks' death in 1963, the Association tilted towards the left of the political spectrum, especially under the new president of the Association, Barry Commoner.


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