Cutting Edge > Groundbreakers

Robert Rodale: A Retrospective 1930–1990
By Anthony Rodale

Robert Rodale, the son of J.I. Rodale (photo, right), founder of the organic movement in the United States, grew up in a very exciting time. The organic pioneers worldwide were developing an idea they never knew would have such an impact on the world today.

In the United States especially, J.I. and Bob Rodale were key leaders in this pioneering group, helping to design the blueprint for today's burgeoning organic food acceptance and market expansion. They were able to persevere and succeed during these challenging years because they found strength in each other -- strength came from an understanding, love, and respect for the soil and for nature itself. In memory of his father, my father wrote, "I will always remember J.I. Rodale not only as my father, but as a man who taught me to think of myself as an organic person, trying to live in nature, striving always to improve the environment while working to improve myself, too. That was the message to me, and it will live on for a long time."

This philosophy was developed from the practical experience of working with the soil. My father lived on the original Organic Gardening Experimental Farm in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. His father, J.I., designed this diversified farm with the primary goal of growing enough organic food to feed his family. A secondary goal was to conduct experiments that would help evolve and define organic gardening and farming techniques. And finally, J.I. wanted the farm to be a place where people of all ages could come and learn firsthand about the principles of gardening and farming organically.

But perhaps even more importantly, the original Organic Gardening Experimental Farm was the perfect training ground for what my father was to become: the world's greatest organic journalist. That farm experience -- living, working, and personally experiencing the connection between soil, human, and environmental health -- was the first of four stages in my father's life that helped him develop his insight into the world around him. Through all of these stages, practical experience -- whether making and applying compost on the farm or writing about the people he actually visited and learned from -- would remain the foundation of his work and vision.

That was especially true in the second stage of his life, when he began to put that practical farm experience to work by writing for Organic Gardening & Farming magazine. Developing Organic Gardening and Farming, and Prevention magazines in partnership with his father, reaching people worldwide through his monthly articles, was one of his most important achievements. Always in search of new ideas and understandings, he followed J.I.'s advice: "If you really want to understand a subject of interest, start a magazine."

But this on-the-job training wasn't enough. Wanting to know more, my father, as a young man, drove by himself across the Untied States and down to Mexico, visiting farms and gardens along the way. It was an experience that would help open his eyes further into the world and impact his approach to writing for the rest of his life. When he reached Mexico, he was especially fascinated by the people, their culture, and the land. He saw the challenges people faced growing food, but he also realized that the people were happy. To these people and to my father, growing food was not a hobby, as most Americans look at it. It was a matter of survival. Although it contrasted with his early upbringing in an urban environment, my father viewed growing food was a way of life.

This international experience in Mexico also helped strengthen my father's talent for writing about gardening and farming. It also taught him the importance of sharing information and experiences about what others were doing around the world to try to improve their quality of life.

My father worked with J.I. for about 20 years as a cutting-edge writing and publishing duo, expanding the organic concept and gaining widespread national attention for their ideas. Then tragedy struck with J.I.'s unexpected death in 1971. Despite the difficulty of my grandfather's death, my father was ready to continue on his own. He had reached the third stage of his life, and he now had the grounding and practical experience to evolve the organic concept to a new level -- the development of his favorite concept: regenerative agriculture with a global approach.

Deeply ingrained in him by now was the idea that he was "thinking as an organic person, trying to live in tune with nature, and always striving to help improve the environment while working to improve oneself." That was the right foundation for my father to take the organic concept beyond its perceived image of the 1960s and '70s. Building on his trip to Mexico, where he realized that growing food was about health and survival and not about an alternative lifestyle, he was ready to answer a growing list of critics. "Prove it," the scientists and agri-business professionals said. "Show us organic farming can work on a large scale." He accepted the challenge. And with that came the birth of the new Organic Experimental Farm, which today is home to The Rodale Institute.

As the new organic research trials were put into place, my father never stopped traveling the world to learn how people were growing food. And he didn't stop talking and writing about what he was learning from farmers and gardeners. The pace at which he traveled and wrote reached an almost consuming intensity, which was not surprising to those who knew him well. He was highly competitive in many areas. (Not too many people knew, for instance, that he was a world-class skeet shooter.) He used his competitive energy to define the science of growing foods organically, profitably, and in tune with nature. He often said, "When people tell me it can't be done, that's when my juices begin to flow."

It was through his intimate, personal involvement with the soil and the research program of the "new farm," as he called it, that he came to realize that there was a new level to organic farming. That new level was about the relationship one has with the land -- integrating the needs of both the individual and the land itself. For us to get what we need from the soil, we have to give the soil what it needs: we must help it replenish itself to build its fertility. Over those early years, he saw the land as almost literally regenerating itself before his eyes.

This is how the concept of regenerative food production was born. Using his global journalism skills, he wrote about regenerative gardening and farming in his monthly Prevention and Organic Gardening articles. His attitude shifted from thinking as an organic person to thinking as a regenerative person. And in the process, my father's travels, thinking, and writing began to move him beyond the garden and farm. He theorized that if nature can regenerate itself, maybe with the right attitude, people can regenerate themselves and their environment. That excited my father very much.

As always, he used his magazine articles to create a dialog with his readers about his regenerative vision. The gardens and farms he discussed in his articles became symbols not only for his readers' connection to their own gardens and farms but also for their connection to themselves and others. In this connection -- between people working together to improve themselves and their world -- my father saw solutions to the world's growing problems of famine and environmental degradation.

Knowing these solutions could be found in our connection to nature, he continued to travel throughout the world, learning what other people were doing and then sharing those success stories with as many people as he could. Again his competitive spirit kicked in: he knew he had much to do and little time to do it. He often wondered, "Am I doing enough?"

Not long before his death, I had the opportunity to travel with him to China. He had been there seventeen years earlier, and when we returned together, he was amazed at how much had changed. Beautiful images he had in his head from his first visit were ruined by the destruction of overpopulation and rampant development. I saw his enthusiasm for his dreams of a regenerative world begin to fade.

But my father was also a positive thinker. He was already thinking about his next article for Organic Gardening and how he could use our China visit and experience in a positive way for global improvement. Unfortunately, he never got a chance to see his China articles published. He was killed in an auto crash in Moscow on his way to the Moscow Airport after signing an agreement that would help start a magazine for farmers and gardeners in Russia. To the end, he never lost sight of his ability to communicate an important message to people around the world through the written word.

Three months before his trip to Moscow, my father wrote his last article for Prevention. At that point, he was definitely in the fourth phase of his life -- his spiritual connection to the world around him. The article was entitled "Be Alive!" He started the article with a question about his father, J.I.: "Can a person be so alive that their friends expect to meet and talk with them years after their death? Possibly so! At least that happened to my father."

He went on to talk about his own life, saying, "One of the main ways to actually be more alive is to walk fearlessly just about anywhere." In his last few years, my father did exactly that. He walked the dangerous streets of Dakar, Senegal; he did the same in Ethiopia and many other countries, such as China, India, and Russia. "Nothing bad ever happened to me," he said in Prevention. "Far from it!"

That's a message we can all benefit from. In fact, it's the message of The Rodale Institute today. The Institute is the living voice of my father, grandfather, and future generations. We will continue to walk fearlessly, but in a determined way, building and growing on practical experience and the vision and spirit of the J.I. and Robert Rodale team.

This article was published in our Gardencycle Day Runner for Year 2000, 10 Speed Press. Photos copyright and courtesy of Rodale Photos.

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