Jimmy Anderson

Fiona Cullen notes: "In 1961 my parents, Jimmy and Pauline Anderson, bought Outfield farm in Perthshire. Pauline, who has died of cancer, aged 78, was then a young mother of four, and becoming passionately interested in nutrition. This led her to a questioning of food grown with chemicals and a search that led eventually to biodynamic methods of farming, and the ideas of Rudolf Steiner. In 1966 Pauline and Jimmy moved to a Dorset farm, where they had their fifth child, before moving to Forest Row, East Sussex, in 1968. There they studied at Emerson College, an education centre based on Steiner's work. The Austrian philosopher's ideas were to become the guiding influence of their lives.

"In 1969 they bought Busses Farm, outside East Grinstead, where they farmed using biodynamic husbandry and offered Emerson College student placements. In 1972 Pauline co-founded the Seasons wholefood and craft shop in Forest Row, which is still trading and started the nearby Seasons Kitchen vegetarian cafe.

"Following the sale of Busses in the late 1970s, Pauline and Jimmy set up and ran an Edinburgh biodynamic vegetarian restaurant in the Grassmarket. Pauline then took a three-year art therapy course, followed by training in Hauschka Massage in Germany. The Andersons also set up Farm Future, a consultancy offering advice to farmers and gardeners switching to biodynamic growing...In 1999 Jimmy was awarded an MBE for his services to organic agriculture, but Pauline, a quiet pioneer, was acknowledged as being very much a part of his achievement." 

Related Sourcewatch

 * E.F. Schumacher