use of artificial chemicals. Artificial fertilizers were first developed during the mid-19th century. These early fertilizers were cheap, powerful, and easy to transport in bulk. Similar advances occurred in chemical pesticides in the 1940s, leading to the decade being referred to as the 'pesticide era'. These new agricultural techniques, while beneficial in the short-term, had serious longer-term side-effects such as soil compaction, erosion, and declines in overall soil fertility, along with health concerns about toxic chemicals entering the food supply. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, soil biology scientists began to seek ways to remedy these side effects while still maintaining higher production. In 1921 the founder and pioneer of the organic movement Albert Howard and his wife Gabrielle Howard, accomplished botanists, founded an Institute of Plant Industry to improve traditional farming methods in India. Among other things, they brought improved implements and improved animal husbandry methods from their scientific training; then by incorporating aspects of Indian traditional methods, developed protocols for the rotation of crops, erosion prevention techniques, and the systematic use of composts and manures. Stimulated by these experiences of traditional farming, when Albert Howard returned to Britain in the early 1930s he began to promulgate a system of organic agriculture. In 1924 Rudolf Steiner gave a series of eight lectures on agriculture with a focus on influences of the moon, planets, non-physical beings and elemental forces.Paull, John (2013) "Breslau (Wrocław): In the footsteps of Rudolf Steiner", Journal of Bio- Dynamics Tasmania, 110:10-15. They were held in response to a request by adherent farmers who noticed degraded soil conditions and a deterioration in the health and quality of crops and livestock resulting from the use of chemical fertilizers. The lectures were published in November 1924; the first English translation appeared in 1928 as The Agriculture Course. In July 1939, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, the author of the standard work on biodynamic agriculture (Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening), came to the UK at the invitation of Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne as a presenter at the Betteshanger Summer School and Conference on Biodynamic Farming at Northbourne's farm in Kent. One of the chief purposes of the conference was to bring together the proponents of various approaches to organic agriculture in order that they might cooperate within a larger movement. Howard attended the conference, where he met Pfeiffer. In the following year, Northbourne published his manifesto of organic farming, Look to the