General characteristics

Biodynamic agriculture, or Biodynamics comprises an ecological and sustainable system of agricultural production, particularly of food for humans that claims to respect all creation. It is based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, particularly eight lectures given by him in Schloss Koberwitz in Silesia, Germany in 1924 (nowadays close to Wrocław, Poland), shortly before his death. The term "biologically dynamic" or "biodynamic" was however not invented by Steiner, but by his adherents. It includes many of the ideas of organic farming (but predates the term) and has as a core focus mystical anthroposophical ideas of the soil and the life on and in it as a living, sentient system. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Silesia (-Latin, Polish ÅšlÄ…sk, German Schlesien, Czech Slezsko) is a historical region in central Europe. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1924 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... WrocÅ‚aw, ( [:vrɔʦwaf], German Breslau, Czech Vratislav, Latin Wratislavia; many Polish documents in English use the spelling Wroclaw) is the capital of Silesia in southwestern Poland, situated on the Oder River (Odra). ... Jump to: navigation, search Organic farming is a way of agriculture that relies on ecosystem management rather than external agricultural inputs. ... Mysticism, from the Greek (mueo, to conceal), is the pursuit of achieving communion with, or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct, personal experience (intuition or insight) rather than rational thought; the belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that... Anthroposophy, also called spiritual science by its founder, Rudolf Steiner, is a philosophy (or, as some opponents claim, a religion) that sprung from the Theosophy movement. ...

Steiner was convinced that the food in his society was constantly degrading, and he believed the source of the problem was artificial fertilizers and pesticides, however he did not believe this was because of chemical or biological properties relating to the substances involved, but for sprititual shortcomings in these substances. Steiners considered the world and everything living in it as primarily spiritual in nature, the physical and thus chemical or biological processes involved were secondary. He also believed that living matter was different from dead matter, a viewpoint commonly referred to as vitalism. Many of Steiners writings describe energy flows radiated from the earth akin to the so-called Odic force. Jump to: navigation, search Fertilizers or fertilisers are compounds given to plants with the intention of promoting growth; they are usually applied either via the soil, for uptake by plant roots, or by foliar spraying, for uptake through leaves. ... Jump to: navigation, search An airplane spreading pesticide. ... Chemistry (in Greek: χημεία) is the science of matter that deals with the composition, structure, and properties of substances and with the transformations that they undergo. ... Main articles: Life All organisms (viruses not included) consist of cells, which in turn, are based on a common carbon-based biochemistry. ... Vitalism is the doctrine that life cannot be explained solely by mechanism. ... Also called Od [õd] and Odyle, Odic Force is the 19th century name given to a hypothetical vital energy or life force that proponents say permeates all living plants, animals, and humans. ...

Another aspect of the idea is that the farm as a whole is a living system, and therefore should be closed self-nourishing system, which the preparations nourish. Disease of organisms is not to be tackled in isolation but is a symptom of problems in the whole organism.

Fertilizers

Steiner prescribed eight different preparations for fertilizers which were allowed for use in biodynamic agriculture, and gave great details of how these were to be prepared. The substances are numbered 500 through 507, whereof the first two are used for preparing fields whereas the latter six are used for making compost: Jump to: navigation, search Fertilizers or fertilisers are compounds given to plants with the intention of promoting growth; they are usually applied either via the soil, for uptake by plant roots, or by foliar spraying, for uptake through leaves. ... Compost is the decomposed remnants of organic materials (those with plant and animal origins). ...

Field preparations

Field preparations, for stimulating humus formation:

• 500: (horn-manure) a humus mixture prepared by stuffing cow manure into the horn of a cow, bury this into the ground (40-60 cm below the surface) in the autumn and let it decompose during a winter.
• 501: prepared by stuffing the horn of a cow with powdered quartz, dispose it into the ground at summer and retrieve it in late autumn.

Both 500 and 501 is used on fields by stirring the contents of a horn in 40-60 litres of water for an hour and whirl it in different directions every second minute. About 4 horns are used for each hectare of soil. Animal manure is often a mixture of animals faeces and bedding straw, as in this example from a stable. ... Quartz is the most abundant mineral in the Earths continental crust. ...

Compost preparations

Compost preparations, used for preparing compost:

• 502: Yarrow blossoms (Achillea millefolium) are stuffed into urinary bladders from Cervus elaphus, Red Deers, placed in the sun during summer, buried in earth during winter and retrieved in the spring.
• 503: Chamomile blossoms (Chamomilla officinalis) are stuffed into small intestines from cattle buried in humus-rich earth in the autumn and retrieved in the spring.
• 504: Stinging nettle (Urtica dioca, and the whole plant in full bloom) is stuffed together under ground surrounded on all sides by peat for a year.
• 505: Oak bark (Quercus robur) is chopped in small pieces, placed inside the skull of some domesticated animal, surrounded by peat and buried in earth in a place where lots of rain water runs by.
• 506: Dandelion flowers (Taraxacum officinale) is stuffed into peritoneum from some cattle is buried in earth during winter and retrieved in the spring.
• 507: Valerian flowers (Valeriana officinalis) is extracted into water.

One to three grams (a teaspoon) of each preparation is added to a dung heap by digging 50 cm deep holes with a distance of 2 meters from each other, except for the 507 preparation, which is stirred into 5 litres of water and sprayed over the entire compost surface. All preparations are thus used in homeopathic quantities, and the only intent is to strengthen the life forces of the farm, i.e. the preparations fulfill spiritual goals and nothing else. Binomial name Achillea millefolium L. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is a common herb found throughout North America and Europe. ... The interior of bladder. ... Binomial name Cervus elaphus Linnaeus,, 1758 Subspecies Numerous - see text. ... Chamomile flowers The name Chamomile or Camomile is ambiguous and can refer to several distinct species. ... Diagram showing the poop shoot In biology the small intestine is the part of the gastrointestinal tract between the stomach and the large intestine (colon). ... Binomial name Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758 Cattle (called simply cows in vernacular usage) are domesticated ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. ... Binomial name Urtica dioica L. The Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica and sometimes jaggy nettle or burning weed) is a herb native to Europe, Asia, and North America, the best known member of the nettle genus Urtica. ... Peat in Lewis, Scotland Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetable matter. ... Species See List of Quercus species The term oak can be used as part of the common name of any of several hundred species of trees and shrubs in the genus Quercus, and some related genera, notably Lithocarpus. ... Jump to: navigation, search Species See text Dandelion (Taraxacum) is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. ... In higher vertebrates, the peritoneum is the membrane that forms the lining of the abdominal cavity - it covers most of the intra-abdominal organs. ... Binomial name Valeriana officinalis L. & Maillefer Valerian (Valeriana officinalis, Valerianaceae) is a hardy perennial flowering plant, with heads of sweetly scented pink or white flowers. ... Homeopathy (also spelled homœopathy or homoeopathy) from the Greek words όμοιος, hómoios (similar) and πάθος, páthos (suffering), is a system of alternative medicine, notable for its controversial practice of prescribing water-based solutions that in many cases do not contain chemically active ingredients. ...

Dealing with pests and weeds

Biodynamic agriculture use techniques reminiscent of the fertilization for pest control and weed control, most of these techniques include using the ashes of a pest or weed that has been trapped or picked from the fields and ceremonially burnt. Steiner sees pests and weeds as a result of inbalance between life forces emanated from the earth. Pest control refers to the regulation or management of another species defined as a pest, usually because it is detrimental to a persons health, the ecology or the economy. ... Weed control, a botanical component of pest control, stops weeds from reaching a mature stage of growth when they could be harmful to domesticated plants, sometimes livestocks, by using manual techniques including soil cultivation, mulching and herbicides. ... Look up ash in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Since Steiner viewed the full moon, Venus and Mercury as cosmic powers influencing the fertility of plants, the biodynamic techniques for pest control involves blocking the fertility influence from said planets on different pests. Steiner dictates that this is achived in different ways for pests and weeds: The Galileo spacecraft took this composite image on 7 December 1992 on its way to explore the Jupiter system in 1995-97. ... Adjective Venusian or (rarely) Cytherean (*min temperature refers to cloud tops only) Atmospheric characteristics Atmospheric pressure 9. ... Atmospheric characteristics Atmospheric pressure trace Potassium 31. ...

• Weeds are combated by collecting seeds from the weeds and burning them above a wooden flame. The ashes from the seeds is then spread on the fields, which will according to biodynamic philosophy block the influence from the full moon on the particular weed and make it infertile.
• Pests such as insects or Apodemus (field mice) have more complex processes associated with them depending on what pest is to be targeted. For example field mice are to be countered by deploying ashes prepared from field mice skin when Venus is in the scorpius.

A seed is the ripened ovule of gymnosperm or angiosperm plants. ... Classes & Orders Subclass: Apterygota Orders Archaeognatha (Bristletails) Thysanura (Silverfish) Monura - extinct Subclass: Pterygota Orders Ephemeroptera (mayflies) Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) Diaphanopteroidea - extinct Palaeodictyoptera - extinct Megasecoptera - extinct Archodonata - extinct Infraclass: Neoptera Orders Blattodea (cockroaches) Isoptera (termites) Mantodea (mantids) Dermaptera (earwigs) Plecoptera (stoneflies) Orthoptera (grasshoppers, etc) Phasmatodea (walking sticks) Embioptera (webspinners) Zoraptera... Species See text Apodemus is a genus of Eurasian field mice. ... Field mouse may refer to: in North America, a small vole such as the Meadow Vole in Europe, Asia and north Africa, one of several species of mice in genus Apodemus in South America, one of several species of mice in genus Akodon This is a disambiguation page — a navigational... Adjective Venusian or (rarely) Cytherean (*min temperature refers to cloud tops only) Atmospheric characteristics Atmospheric pressure 9. ... Scorpius ( , and Latin for scorpion) is one of the constellations of the zodiac. ...

Skeptical view

Opponents of biodynamic agriculture argue that there is nothing to be gained by following Steiner's teachings, and that similar or equal results can be obtained using standard organic farming principles. In particular, the use of religious and philosophical concepts, for example those of balance and harmony, beyond the conventional critical thinking of the Western world stand out as points of contention - as well as of interest. Jump to: navigation, search Organic farming is a way of agriculture that relies on ecosystem management rather than external agricultural inputs. ...

Many organic farmers believe that the practices of biodynamic agriculture more resemble alchemy or magic akin to geomancy, and that even though it at some point pioneered organic farming is more of a burden to the movement promoting organic farming, since it is easy to criticize and ridicule, and this criticism spills over to other organic farmers. Alchemy is an early protoscientific practice combining elements of chemistry, physics, astrology, art, semiotics, metallurgy, medicine, and mysticism. ... The ancient symbol of the pentagram is often used as a symbol for magic. ... Geomancy (from the Latin geo, Earth, mancy prophecy) is a method of divination to interpret markings on the ground or how handfuls of dirt land when you toss them. ...

There have been some attempts to scientifically compare organic and biodynamic farming, and others comparing biodynamic and conventional farming. The differences with organic farming are generally small, those with conventional farming more significant.

Certification

The largest certification organisation for biodynamic farms is Demeter International and its country organisations. Other organisations exist; in the USA this has led to Demeter trademarking the term biodynamic in the USA to stop other organisations using it. In France Biodivin certifies Biodynamic wine. Biodynamic wines are those made using the principles of biodynamic agriculture. ...

Sources

• Steiner, Rudolf: Spiritual Foundations for the Renewal of Agriculture: A Course of Lectures. , Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association, 1993, Kimberton, PA. 310 p, ISBN 093825037X

This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

See also

• Biodynamic wine
• Organic farming
• Sustainable agriculture

Biodynamic wines are those made using the principles of biodynamic agriculture. ... Jump to: navigation, search Organic farming is a way of agriculture that relies on ecosystem management rather than external agricultural inputs. ... Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals: environmental stewardship, farm profitability, and prosperous farming communities. ...

External links

• Text of Steiners lectures on agriculture
• The Biodynamic Agricultural Association
• Biodynamic Agriculture Australia
• The Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association (BDA) Home Page
• Demeter International - biodynamic food certification
• Aracaria - experimental biodynamic farm in Australia
• - Comparative study of biodynamic and conventional farms in New Zealand