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The concept of a biodynamic agriculture Based on understanding the soil as a living organism, it is interesting, but it is still controversial. And is that many of its characteristics make it a very debatable proposal.
But how to define it, and when did it arise? Biodynamic agriculture is a very peculiar type of ecological agriculture or gardening, which appears in a specific way. Specifically, it arises from a course taught by the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Stainer in Silesia (a region divided between Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany) in 1924. In Green Ecologist, we explain in detail What is biodynamic agriculture.
The biodynamic movement
It is an agriculture, therefore, based on theories of the Austrian Rudolf Steiner, founder of anthroposophy, a philosophy of life from which biodynamic methods capture his spiritual vision of nature. A peculiar philosophy of a cosmic type.
It was its application by the people who attended those conferences, mostly farmers, that made it go from academic to practice. It was they who, de facto, developed it. In fact, Stainer died only a year after teaching them. Currently, it is carried out in many countries.
According to Steiner, anthroposophy is "a path of knowledge that would like to lead the spiritual in man to the spiritual in the universe." His worldview aims to seek answers to the mysteries of life from the relationships between nature, human beings and the universe.
The holistic approach (which understands the world as a whole, and its elements as part of that whole) makes biodynamic agriculture itself part of the anthroposophy, like one of its branches.
At the commercial level, foods are separated according to their nutritional quality, also as part of that all-encompassing anthroposophy, including our way of eating, the meaning of food and its nutritional power.
In addition, its commercialization is carried out under a registered trademark, marketed for the first time in 1928 under the name of Demeter Biodynamic Quality. It is an International network of Independent Certification Bodies.
Against organic farming, which proposes a return to nature, in this case the important thing is understand the laws of the cosmos to focus agricultural practices from these. Steiner expressed it in these words:
Seek true material practical life, but seek it without making yourself insensitive to the spirit that is active in it. Seek the spiritual because you must selflessly translate it into practical life in the material world.
Basic principles of biodynamics
We could list a long series of cultivation methods of biodynamic agriculture, which are fundamentally based on green manures and crop rotation. However, it is perhaps more interesting to understand the coherence between the different methods, as well as the curious philosophy that explains them.
As an agricultural production system, biodynamics considers the field of cultivation as a living organism. The principles of diversification, recycling, chemical exclusion, local production, as well as the use of plant, animal and mineral substances exposed to natural rhythms prevail. They are the so-called biodynamic preparations, used to harmonize the different vital processes in fertilizers, plants or soil.
This good development of the cultivation or the growth of plants in gardening has to be achieved thanks to the translation of the language transmitted to us by the "cosmic forces" present in that environment.
In practice, preparations are made from esoteric principles, also taking into account the phases of the moon and planetary rhythms. Therefore, taking into account cosmic rhythms is essential for scheduling agricultural jobs.
Understanding the biological functioning of soils and plants, of that whole that make up the cultivated spaces, will give us the keys to improve the quality of the products. In part, it is a question, in short, of following many of the principles of organic farming, although in biodynamics there are relevance to pseudo-scientific aspects.
However, just because science has not been able to prove or go deep enough into issues such as the influence of the moon on plant growth does not mean that it cannot be perfectly valid in terms of productivity and efficacy. So at least, say his supporters.
Similarities and differences with organic farming
Bio agriculture has points in common with one of its subtypes, biodynamic agriculture. Both aim to avoid the intensive exploitation of the soils, the use of chemical products are carried out by methods accepted by it, such as the care given to the plants, the preparation of compost, long rotations, the mechanical removal of herbs.
However, biodynamic agriculture does not support the use of soluble fertilizers or pesticides. It does not matter whether or not they are natural or chemical. Its composition is the least of it. To control pests, for example, ash is used. Soluble compounds forbidden if we want to obtain really healthy plants, always from their vision.
A controversial agriculture
From the very beginning, biodynamic methods have aroused mixed reactions. Obviously, there have been no shortage of critical theorists, including Peter Treue, an agricultural science research scientist at the University of Kiel in Germany.
Treue the label of pseudoscience and compares its proposals with those that magic or alchemy can offer us. Many other experts have considered biodynamic agriculture a fiasco. Even so, despite constantly being criticized, it cannot fail to recognize that it is an agriculture with its own personality, more natural than the conventional one.
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