An up to date biography on the driving force behind Good Gardeners International and the HH methodology.
Richard Higgins grew up on a Somerset mixed farm and attained his Degree in Agriculture at the Royal Berkshire College of Agriculture and went on to develop the HH-2 Horticultural System and the HH-3 DRY sanitation system after completing a ten-year study of the work of Sir Albert Howard CIE., MA, etc., He first discovered this 100 year old work in a reference library in 1995. The research and development of the world acclaimed ‘Howard technology’ has now become the root of the Howard-Higgins Agricultural and Horticultural System which is promoted by the Good Gardeners International Charity. In conjunction with Regen Ag. the science facilitates barren earth to become fertilie earth in one season, thus kickstarting any regenerative project. This offers communities, farmers, growers, schools and villages to grow pest and disease-resistant crops by totally chemically free means by the employment of fungi and bacteria in one year. The system makes food production far less expensive than conventional growing and tillage because it is introducing in one season the correct fungi and bacteria without the need for any soil analysis. It can be done on both the mechanical level and the labour intensive level but with the ever spiralling costs of chemical fertilisers and pesticides a wholly sustainable system of Agriculture can be achieved. Richard has been suggesting to the Radio 4 Broadcast, Farming Today, for many years that a more sustainable economy that converts waste products into fertiliser is necessary for every country to survive into the future. The health giving properties of this type of farming are covered in the title the Lost Science of Organic Cultivation. “This could be a new forward move in Preventative Medicine” Sir Albert Howard. It has also been stated by a world leading Expert on Fungi, Paul Stamets, that the fertiliser of the future will be based on fungi and bacteria.
Previous to the development of the HH-2 Horticultural System and the discovery of the work of Howard Richard renovated and built several properties starting with an acquisition from the Redundant Churches Fund and subsequent development of the St. Swithuns Hall Gallery in the City centre of Worcester. He attained planning permission and upgraded the derelict building from Listed grade III to Listed grade II – a building of exceptional interest. Installing a mezzanine floor with a spiral staircase and the excavation and conversion of the previously undiscovered mediaeval cellars into a fully functioning reception and restaurant. Here he opened and managed Worcester’s first vegetarian restaurant winning acclaims in the National Good Food Guide. It is now an Italian restaurant.
Permaculture and Sustainable Farming. Richard became interested in Permaculture after returning from India in 1996 where he released the Lost Science of Organic Cultivation, an update of the valuable work of Sir Albert Howard. He has since designed and run many farms and smallholdings.
Richard purchased land in Hawaii, 2005 and built singlehandedly a Government-approved dwelling in the Nanavale Forest on the Big Island of Hawaii. He was offered a Trusteeship of the Nanavale Forest Reserve.
The road to the HH-2 Horticultural System
Richard Higgins NDA. PDC. Philosopher and Holistic Scientist is the Founder and Director of Sustainable Agriculture London and the chairman of Good Gardeners International. Richard was raised on a Somerset mixed farm in the UK and studied his NDA at the Royal Berkshire College of Agriculture. He later completed a ten-year postgraduate study, of the works of Sir Albert Howard while travelling and teaching from China to Hawaii. Howard is now considered the Grandfather of organic farming and his research from the Permanent Agriculture of the east (which is where the term Permaculture was derived), and the growing system that he employed in conjunction with the Good Gardeners No Dig technology has formed the foundation of the Howard-Higgins Horticultural system today.
Richard has become a world-leading exponent of this branch of Sir Albert’s work on Soil Fertility which is based on the development of specific fungi and bacteria. Developing the HH-2 equipment and it’s third prototype which is now in production renders all types of organic wastes and obnoxious wastes into fertiliser in 90 days. The subsequent title The Operators Manual is available when you purchase the system and is the latest science and innovation and IP brought together and developed by Richard through his 25 years of research on the subject. This ancient science was found to have originated in China 4,700 years ago and was trialled again on a farm in Hertfordshire in 1995. So astounding were the results that Richard went to India to trial the work there again; as Sir Albert had done 100 years before.
July, 2023
Richard Vobes interviews Richard Higgins on a Pod Cast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=souPKfy_VLQ
May, 2023
Richard Higgins is introduced to the Podcaster Richard Vobes at an event in the Petersfield area. The first speaker of the evening was delayed on the Motorway and so Richard was asked to make the first presentation of the evening; which was very well received. Vobes receives a signed copy of the Lost Science of Organic Cultivation.
Spring, 2023
The manufacture of the new HH-2 (Ally) is now released for distribution from South Wales. This is the fastest, safest, most economical and reliable sanitation system on Earth. It renders raw sewage into optimum fertiliser in 90 days.
Summer, 2022
Richard is offered an International book publishing contract
Richard presents at the Save the Usk demonstration in Crickhowell, Wales. He recommends that the technology he has is perfectly capable of reducing the massive outflows of raw sewage into the rivers and seas of the United Kingdom.
Spring, 2022
Richard has established the manufacture and distribution of the new HH-3 DRY Compost Toilet, available on ebay and on this web site.
November, 2021, COP26
The United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly referred to as COP26. Good Gardeners International were invited, by Dorset Biosolutions to make a presentation on the Stand of Springfield Agri. where Richard displayed the film of the work he did at the Haiti earthquake of 2010. There he met with the Director of the biggest investment fund for India.
During the Covid-19 Pandemic, January 2021
The Good Gardeners moves offices to South Wales. Richard hands over his teaching role at the Watford UTC to one of his trained staff who has gone on to land three jobs in teaching the science.
Richard is accepted as a LEAF advisor and Consultant member, June 2020
Kew Gardens Science Festival, 2019
Richard attends the Science Festival and applies to the CPU Department for verification of the HH-4 efficacy and applies again to speak at the Jodrel Laboratory.
Save the Children International, 2019
Richard, as the Chairman of GGI, is offered a four-year contract with Save the Children International with his business partner NorgesVel. MOU completed. Due to COVID there has been a two year delay. The connection with Save the Children has since been revived again.
HRH The Prince of Wales
Richard’s work is known to HRH having received the transcript of his lecture at Coventry University, 2011. The HH-2 system stands on offer at the door of Highgrove today. Richard has several letters from His Royal Highness.
eBay, 2018
Richard has taken advantage of marketing HH-4 through the online facility of eBay. The product can be found here https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=hh-4+fertiliser&_sacat=0
NorgesVel 2018
This year has seen Norgesvel achieve funding to take the HH-2 technology into Mozambique where many peanut farmers’ crops are suffering from the carcinogen Aflatoxin. This toxin is harboured in exhausted soil and becomes prevalent in the storage of crops and when the crop is used for consumption. This will later form the partnership with GGI and SCI in 2019. With the outbreak of the Coronavirus the technology is still awaiting export into Africa.
Other areas of interest: Rothamsted have spent 50 years on the aphid problem and have to date found no solution. Richard with the HH-2 Horticultural System has conclusively solved the problem of Aphids.
Richard has also communicated with the following establishments; The Potato Council Oxford and Cambridge University Farm on airborne potato blight; Wellesbourne Research Centre on freeing tomatoes from all kinds of diseases. Warwick University on setting up further growing trials in Africa and with Professor Roy Kennedy of Pershore Horticultural College who have offered verification trials on the efficacy of HH-4 on slugs, snails and caterpillars..
Harper Adams University
Richard makes a three hour presentation to the scientists at Harper Adams University in Shropshire
Eastern and Ottley Agricultural College, 2017
Richard presents a Sustainability Module for the MSc students by the invitation of Dr Tony Wilson. Two years running.
Warwick University 2017
Richard was invited to present to the Field Scientists of the Life Sciences Dept., of Warwick University which has now amalgamated with Wellbourne Horticultural Research International where Richard visited many years before to meet with Professor Noble – head of the field laboratories. Professor Holub is seeking funding to test the HH-2’s end product HH-4 on the Haricot Bean farms that he is connected with in Kenya. Also in the same year, also at Warwick, Richard presented an overview of the science of DRY sanitation to Professor Elizabeth Wellington who has been in Micro Biology for 40 years. The offer of a contract and expounding of the technology has not been taken up to date.
Survey Eastern Uganda 2016
Richard was invited to survey a school in Jinja, Eastern Uganda for the purpose of installing the HH-2 equipment and growing system for this school. An appeal for this and other projects are now on the Charity Choice web site http://www.charitychoice.co.uk/charities/search?t=qsearch&q=255300
Chairman of Good Gardeners International 2016
After being a trustee for many years Richard was offered the chair of the GGI by the founder and chariman Ramsay-Shewell Cooper and David Wilkin the previous chairman.
Kew Gardens 2016
After viewing a TV programme “Kew on a Plate” and seeing the large array of diseases and pests in the vegetable gardens of Kew Gardens in London, Richard offered to install his HH-2 system there. Their Mycology department has identified the specific fungi that Richard employs in his HH-2 system and have put him in touch with the CABI laboratory for further testing of the product. This however requires funding. Richard has received a donation to take up the offer made by HRH the Prince of Wales to attend his open invitation at the Highgrove Estate in Gloucestershire, UK, where he intends to deliver the Howard-Higgins System in person. Still awaiting a response
Rothamsted, 2016
New Director Professor Crawford visits Well End Micro-Farm to witness 19-inch Parsnips and 3.5 Kg beetroot grown on un-dug land.
Easton and Ottley Agricultural College 2015
Dr Anthony Wilson of the Eastern and Ottley Agricultural College invited Richard to teach a module on the Howard System to his Msc students for two consecutive years. Dr. Wilson believes this fundamental science is lacking in the agricultural institutions of today and has ordered the HH-2 system for the new greenhouse development at Askham Bryan College where he now works. Richard joined the UKTI recently and was invited to meet the Agricultural Representative for Pakistan through the British Foreign Office. He was informed that ‘the Government of Pakistan would be extremely interested in this technology.’
Oxford Real Farming Conference 2015
From the immense interest from his presentations to a packed auditorium at this conference, Richard is now lecturing at Agricultural Colleges.
Rothamsted 2015
Attending a “Year of the Soil” lecture at Rothamsted Richard was subsequently invited to meet the new director of Rothamsted, Achim Doberman, who he hopes will take up the suggestion of the previous director Professor Maurice Moloney to ‘take this work to the Far East to obtain funding and carry out this work on a large scale.’ Awaiting further action.
Leeds University
Fro the Radio broadcast of Professor Ted Cocking of Leeds University on the technology of introducing nitrogen-fixing bacteria onto any crop root system Richard was invited to meet the CEO of Azotic Technologies at the Institute of Directors in London to discuss his soil amendment programme. He was then offered a possible world partnership combining the two technologies.
3rd African Congress for Water and Sanitation 2013
Richard attended this congress in Kigali, funded by the Waterloo Foundation and made several approaches to the committee about the major different aspects to the Howard-Higgins DRY system that is now manufactured in the United Kingdom.
Sweden 2013
Richard presented the science of the HH-2 system to the Stockholm Environmental Institute in Stockholm, where the Director, Dr. Roasemarrin was so impressed that he suggested that ‘this science should be taught from football stadiums.’ Richard also presented to the subcommittee of SuSanA (3,000 members) where he is the co-chair of the working group WG05 – Sanitation to Agriculture.
Radio 4 Farming Today 2013
More recently he has presented at the National Badger conference in Hampshire about the prevention of the spread of TB in cattle through the introduction of the HH-2 system for sterilising cow waste and producing antibiotics in the soil that are passed into animal fodder.
Rothamsted Soil Scientists 2013
He was involved with the GM debate with Rothamsted Research and after presenting the case against GM technology on the Farming Today programme was subsequently invited to meet with the top five soil scientists of Rothamsted Research by Maurice Molony, the Director. A Forty-five-minute discussion ensued.
Soil Association Presentation 2012
Richard is also a consultant to various other groups on food security and presented at the National Soil Symposium, for the Soil Association. He runs a Micro-farm for teaching sustainable systems for the future.
Mozambique 2012
Richard was deployed to Mozambique with The Royal Norwegian Society (NorgesVel) where trials were completed on scaling up the HH-2 system for maximum carbon sequestration from general farm wastes and local sanitation inputs. The system is known as Black Carbon Farming as this method sequesters 3 times more carbon than any above-ground growth (Lawton, Permaculture Research Institute, Australia).
Coventry University 2011
Richard was invited by the now ‘Minister of Power’ for Nigeria to present his Howard Lecture at the University in 2011. A transcript was subsequently sent to HRH The Prince of Wales who wrote a letter of thanks to Richard for presenting this Howard (Memorial) Lecture.
Haiti 2010
he spent three months at the Haiti earthquake disaster utilising the Howard-Higgins method of DRY sanitation and waste management – forming ‘the cleanest refugee camp in Haiti’ where he developed the first OXFAM urine separator footplate, which they now have in production. His site was recommended to be open to the public by the DINEPA WASH office and the site was visited and approved by the Technical Director of CRS., and many others including Professor Reid of WEDC., who, in his appraisal of the sanitation disaster in Port Au Prince Haiti, recommended that the HH-3 DRY Sanitation system was the most effective method of processing obnoxious waste management. (Haiti film II, MEDIA section of www.suaglon.co.uk).
Writing of The Lost Science of Organic Cultivation 1997
Richard completed this title in Calcutta, India, which is an update of Howard’s work.
The Waste Products of Agriculture, Faber and Faber, 1931
It has now finally been released for sale with an ISBN number June 2020.
Vegetable crops are threatened due to excessive wet weather. Oil seed rape production is down 38% Olive oil prices increase 108% due to excessive drought
New findings from Michael Mosely. A BBC broadcast on the Today programme It is now found that previous information on cooking with Olive oil is
As one cannot write to the BBC Unexpected programme we are posting here some News you know and some Science you don’t. No University or
