What is biodynamic agriculture?
Many people know the food certified "Demeter" but what is the philosophy underlying the biodynamic agriculture . Its base is in the spiritual science of Rudolf Steiner: Anthroposophy.
Rudolf Steiner [1861-1925] has developed the scientific and spiritual (Anthroposophy) for understanding the world and of mankind itself. The human capacity for knowledge is not limited to the physical-material , the human being can know the laws and etheric forces acting on the formation and vegetative growth, and the astral influences and the constellations on the life on Earth.
What are the key ideas behind this form of agriculture
In his book "The Philosophy of Liberty" * (1894), Steiner gives us a firm ground to advance the knowledge of how safe our thinking and our experience, the fundamental relationship of the human mind the world is not dualistic but participatory.
"… I just do not want to believe, want to know. Each of us the right to require from their experiences and their immediate personal experiences and from there ascend to the knowledge of the universe everything. "
In the early twentieth century farmers who had already noticed degeneration of soil fertility and the nutritional quality of food. Rudolf Steiner when asked what they could do to remedy this, he arranged a working conference in Koberwitz, east of Breslau, opening the way for an understanding of the living, the emotional and spiritual in nature, and thus the possibility of conducting the work with the earth and its creatures to a 'new order' where it is naturally raised and integrated into the human.
This 1924 work has been documented in the book Course on Organic Agriculture-Dynamics' [Editorial Rudolf Steiner], "… in the course seek to develop what are the conditions to flourish for the various aspects of agriculture, …. how the plants in all its diversity as well as animals …. how to facilitate a reform of fertilization and weed control and pests, …. this is a matter eminently cosmic-terrestrial. "
The farm Dottenfelderhof
(Germany) is a good example of a company headed by biodynamic : sales of products directly on the farm, large areas of crops to sell at the market, a bakery, a dairy, stables for horses and calves, pigs, chickens, fruit trees, orchards, including experimental areas biodynamics.
Dietrich Bauer one of the founding members of the farm, along with 90 people who live here in a cooperative manner, told us: We regular educational seminars for biodynamic agriculture . Students who gain work experience, apprentices, farmers and their families, most of those living under one roof, each one by itself is active in a particular area: a cook, another makes cheese another in charge of the animals, another of the store …, tasks are exchanged and people interact to share experiences.
Peter Schaumberg, executive director of Demeter in Germany, explains: The biodynamic agriculture is based on knowledge of the earth, plants, animals and men working together on a farm. In practice the method is not only bring biodynamic farm organically one but includes the use of preparations which take into account the cosmic influences. The term organic means that the natural laws are recognized and used as much as possible , for example the types of vegetables and fruits are chosen according to a particular type of soil and climate. One of the ideas of R. Steiner is that the farm is seen as an organism in itself. In practical terms this means that all parts of the farm and the activities that occur there, such as plant production and animal husbandry are interconnected.
Given the observation that most of the orchards with production Demeter, however, have no animals, Dr. Peter Schaumberg explains The intensive use of biodynamic preparations and the introduction of animal manure can balance the lack of animals . It is possible to implement the directions of R. Steiner as an ideal, or you can implement at different levels.
Steiner said that the earth is a body organ farm and should be kept in a state vital and fertile using natural thoughtful crop rotations, compost made with manure from the farm as fertilizer and mechanical weed control, disease control, using materials based on plant and mineral …
Source: Association of biodynamic agriculture in Spain