Friend Sykes

Friend Sykes (1888-1965) was an English organic farmer and writer.

Friend Sykes
Born1888
Died1965
OccupationOrganic farmer

Sykes was a breeder of livestock and racehorses.[1] In 1935, he purchased the Chantry estate, near Andover.[1] The land was poor quality and sold for only £4 per acre. Sykes wanted the challenge of transforming the land for fertility without the use of artificials.[1] Sykes was supported by Albert Howard who taught him methods of humus farming. Within a few years his farm land had produced outstanding wheat and prize-winning racehorses.[2]

Sykes was a founding member of the Soil Association.[3][4] Sykes, Lady Eve Balfour and George Scott Williamson organized a founder's meeting on June 12, 1945 in which about a hundred people attended.[4][5] The Soil Association was founded a year later.[4] Sykes and Albert Howard have been described as founders of the organic movement.[6] The use of compost and manure to improve soil was important to Sykes' approach to farming. Sykes and Frank Newman Turner's organic farming emphasized ploughless soil cultivation, green manure, organic soil cover and ley farming.[7]

Friend Sykes was sometimes confused with Frank Sykes a farmer who also wrote books on agriculture for Faber and Faber.[2][8]

Selected publications
  • Humus and the Farmer (Faber and Faber, 1946)[9]
  • Food, Farming and the Future (Faber and Faber, 1951)[10]
  • Modern Humus Farming (Faber and Faber, 1959)
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References
  1. Conford, Philip. (1988). The Organic Tradition: An Anthology of Writings on Organic Farming, 1900-1950. Green Books. p. 151. ISBN 978-1870098090
  2. Conford, Philip. (2001). The Origins of the Organic Movement. Floris Books. p. 237. ISBN 978-0863153365
  3. Hart, Robert. (1968). The Inviolable Hills: The Ecology, Conservation and Regeneration of the British Uplands. Stuart & Watkins. p. 227
  4. Lockeretz, William. (2018). Organic Farming: An International History. CABI. p. 189. ISBN 978-0-85199-833-6
  5. Conford, Philip. (2001). The Origins of the Organic Movement. Floris Books. p. 252. ISBN 978-0863153365
  6. Scialabba, Nadia; Hattam, Caroline. (2002). Organic Agriculture, Environment and Food Security. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. p. 141. ISBN 92-5-104819-3
  7. Lockeretz, William. (2018). Organic Farming: An International History. CABI. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-85199-833-6
  8. Frank Sykes authored This Farming Business (1944) and Living from the Land (1957).
  9. Pendleton, Robert L (1950). "Reviewed Work: Humus and the Farmer by Friend Sykes". The Quarterly Review of Biology. 25 (1): 80.
  10. "Food, Farming and the Future by Friend Sykes". British Veterinary Journal. 107 (8): 342–344.
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