Biodynamic Farming
- a complex farming approach with superior results
Dr. Lucas Dengel

While biodynamic farming has taken roots in India, has found practitioners with outstanding skills, has produced results of extraordinary quality, and continues to spread, and while the term "biodynamic" gets already misused by various producers of organic farming inputs who have little to do with the original users of the term, the general public still knows nothing as to what biodynamic means.

Biodynamic (BD) farming may be defined by the following two characteristics:
Firstly, by the use of particular farming inputs made from various herbal, mineral and manural raw materials processed in complex ways and finally applied in small and minimal doses on soil and crops.
And secondly, by the observation of rhythms in nature which go beyond the most obvious influences of sun, weather and season, but which include lunar, planetary and stellar constellations.

The origin of BD farming is a series of lectures given by the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in 1924, in response to repeated requests and enquiries from experienced farmers amongst the circle of his followers, who were worried about the loss of soil fertility and the decrease of fertility amongst their cattle. Rudolf Steiner died in 1925 and did not see anymore how his seed for a new way of farming grew in the course of time. During the reign of Nazism in Germany and Middle Europe, BD practices were banned and had to go underground, and it was only several years after the Second World War that a movement of BD practitioners got the chance to develop. In the meantime, BD farming had already found its way to North America and to Australia. And it is mainly thanks to Peter Proctor from New Zealand, an international adviser for BD farming and an experienced farmer and gardener, that BD activities have, over the last ten years, developed well and lively in India.

Besides lecturing on farming, Steiner also initiated a new system of education which nowadays is known as Waldorf school education, gave new concepts and remedies in medicine and pharmacology, and new impulses for art and architecture. While he was for some time secretary to the German section of the Theosophic Society, he later distanced himself from the Theosophic movement and baptized his own belief and knowledge system "anthroposophy", i.e. wisdom and knowledge of man.

Rudolf Steiner claimed clairvoyance into man and nature and the spiritual world, and he based all his teaching on this insight and on his occult schooling. However, one does not need to believe in Steiner's infallibility to open one's mind to his books and lectures. As regards BD farming it is perfectly enough to assess its truth and quality by taste. BD farming produce excels by superior taste and aroma, whether it is apple or mango, turmeric powder or chamomile flower, wheat or rice or carrot or potato.

The preconditions and base for BD farming are knowledge and skills in organic farming in general, such as the use of compost and manures and mulching, of legumes as green manure, of intercropping and crop rotation, of companion plants and trap plants, of rainwater catchment and sustainable landscaping. Without these the use of particular preparations will not yield much result, and without observation of seasons and rainfall and sunshine, tuning into moon rhythms remains nonsensical.

Some of the BD preparations to be used by the farmer might be too difficult and elaborate to be produced by each and every user, but the intention behind the movement - as taught and encouraged by Peter Proctor - is definitely self-empowerment of the farmer. "Horn manure", the basic preparation for soil treatment, can be made by any farmer. It is to be made from fresh dung, preferably from a lactating cow, stuffed into a cow horn and buried into humus-rich soil after autumn equinox. It then is to be retrieved before spring equinox, and a small handful - about 25 gram - is enough for one acre, to be stirred within a bucket of water for one full hour, and finally to be sprinkled on the fields in thick droplets. This sprinkling is to be done in the afternoon or evening, when moisture descends and the earth seems to breathe in, in a phase of the Moon descending (which is different and independent from the waning Moon.) One or two applications of horn manure per year have proven to be sufficient to enhance soil fertility and seem to be enough to maintain it over many years. - In the case of "horn silica" the amount is one gram per acre, and its effect is stunning and so strong that care has to be taken not to time the application wrongly.

The observation of lunar and other cosmic rhythms for crop cultivation seems to be a concept which is readily accepted by Indian farmers. Much of rural life is anyway tuned into astrological lore. Intellectuals and academicians should be aware that the Earth receives 40,000 tons of cosmic dust per year, that solar protuberances influence electromagnetic radiation on Earth and thus weather and the course of human history, and that more than 600 life organisms are known to have feeding and reproductive patterns in accordance with lunar rhythms. BD practices in this regard are based on research which has been carried on meticulously over decades. As different positions on the globe and different factors of closeness to sea and land mass might respond to different influences, every farmer is encouraged to find the most prominent cosmic patterns that influence his crops; however, it seems wise to start from the findings of other people's research.

The Indian farmer not only has no intellectual reservation against the recognition of lunar and other cosmic influences on cultivation and plant growth, he also has discovered that this knowledge import from Middle Europe - or New Zealand - has close affinities with Vedic and Indian traditions, for example with the respect for the cow and for cow dung. After all Lakshmi herself is said to reside in cow dung, and Steiner's affiliation with Theosophy and occult schooling had put him into direct contact with ancient wisdom also of the East. In the end it will not matter from where wisdom has originated, truth will prevail independent of passports and man-made borders. Sustainable management of natural resources, ecological farming and the production of non-toxic food of high nutritional qualities will have to find their way into mainstream society and practices if this globe and its inhabitants are to survive.

The Biodynamic Association of India with its office at Bangalore organizes a training course in BD farming twice a year.

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