Albert Howard and the Decolonisation of Science: From Raj to Organic Farming

The decolonization of certain environmental narratives runs parallel with the fall of the British Empire. While the idea of a ‘household of nature’ developed by empire foresters in colonial India merged with mainstream ideas of ecology, certain shades of this scientific narrative did not make the successful jump from imperial to democratic scientific circles with the same ease. This is particularly the case with environmental ideas that revolved around the ‘Law of Return’ that formed the basis of the organic farming movement pioneered by Albert Howard. If, as Roy Macleod points out, ‘knowledge has been a companion of commerce, and both have followed the flag’, then we can see how the advocates of wholeness after the Second World War began the process of separating knowledge of commerce from knowledge of the flag, in this case imperialism.1 Drawing heavily on romanticism and the observation of Indian culture, Howard published widely in scientific journals and his work soon resonated with a broad popular audience scattered throughout the British Empire and elsewhere.