Foundational Works – “the Living Soil” By Lady Eve Balfour.

“The Living Soil” was published by Lady Eve Balfour in 1943. This work began with a discussion of what soil is and the threat erosion posed to soil fertility. Balfour goes on to discuss how much human illness is likely caused by inadequate nutrition as a result of the foods we consume. After discussing various lines of evidence that the condition and fertility of the soil is important to the nutrient content of food crops grown in that soil, and thus human health, Balfour concluded that we need to change our approach to agriculture and our thinking about the role of soils in human health. Balfour’s work is notable on a number of levels. First, that fact that a woman was making significant contributions to soil science in 1943 and before (her career began in 1919) was remarkable. As a bit of comparison, the first soil science Ph.D. earned by a woman in the USA was in 1939 by Ester Perry, and the first woman to official work on soil surveys in the USA was Mary C. Baltz in 1946, so women were not common in soil science at this time. Second, this may well have been the first book primarily devoted to the topic of soils and human health. Third, Balfour was not an academic, she was a college-educated farmer who had devoted her life to farming and to understanding the land that her goods were raised on, therefore, she came into the writing of “The Living Soil” from a bit of a different perspective than the typical person who might write such a work. Balfour went on to be recognized as a leading figure in the creation and nurturing of the organic movement in the English speaking world.