By Jean-Paul Courtens

President, Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association

This letter was published in the Fall 2008 issue of Biodynamics. Copyright 2008, Jean-Paul Courtens.

In this issue we will focus on opportunities for new farmers and gardeners. Listening to the news and considering the recent collapse on Wall Street, we might have a gloom-and-doom perspective of our future. Well, not here at the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association. We have the hope that all current crises will bring about a different perspective on capital and on how we use (or squander) our natural resources. The time is ripe for a biodynamic approach to farming, and we need new farmers to fill this rising need.

In the Agriculture Course, Rudolf Steiner emphasized the need to strive for a “closed” system. Steiner was also a vocal critic of connecting land to capital and credit. (World Economy, Lecture V, July 28, 1922) Who could foresee that the present paradigm of credit and capital could derail the economy so quickly and devastatingly? In the light of today’s collapse of financial markets, Steiner’s words prove his clear insights and practical vision of the economy. As with all of Steiner’s work, it is always highly practical, and the only force that opposes that kind of practicality is greed.

With the rising cost of fossil-based energy and other natural resources, we are becoming aware that our dependence on these is a short-lived dream. According to Dennis Meadows of MIT and his project team “Limits to Growth,” we have maybe 16 years of copper resources left, 24 years of tin, 50 years of oil, 60 years of steel, and 75 years of aluminum. The experts vary greatly on the reserves of potassium and phosphorus, but as the easily available minerals have been removed and the demand from Asia and India has greatly expanded, we should expect the cost of these fertilizers to rise dramatically during the next decade. Not only will retaining nutrients be good for the environment, it will become an economic necessity. Creating soils that better hold and release nutrients simply makes economic sense.

When we take a closer look at the biodynamic compost preparations, we recognize that yarrow has a relationship with the workings of potassium and sulphur, chamomile with calcium and sulphur, nettle with iron, oak bark with calcium, dandelion with silicic acid, and valerian with phosphorus. When we look at the horn manure preparation, we recognize how it works with carbon and microbial life—and the horn silica with photosynthesis. It might be a simplification of a biodynamic farm, but it is still fair to state that Steiner aimed to create the most efficient way to produce food for an ever-expanding world population. The compost preparations are an important tool on a biodynamic farm for helping to retain and release nutrients. Biodynamic agriculture is the most economical farming system, reducing our dependence on expensive and polluting mineral fertilizer.

These days, one could still argue that there is plenty of food around, but isn’t it a strange paradox that in the developed world there are many obese people who are also malnourished? We can see a similar phenomenon in many of the agricultural soils. While they are still getting overloaded with nutrients, they have long surpassed the peak of their production per acre. Not only does this kind of farming contaminate our water supply, it continues to burn carbon through excessive tillage and releases methane from manure out of feedlots into the atmosphere (both adding to greenhouse gas emission). Not only will regenerative agriculture help retain nutrients on the farm—keeping them out of our water supply, oceans, and atmosphere—it will also be a tool to sequester carbon. According to Timothy LaSalle of the Rodale Institute, 20% of all carbon emitted in the United States can be sequestered if farmers switch to regenerative farming methods. Laurie Drinkwater (who at the time worked at the Rodale Institute) has shown dramatic increases of carbon sequestering by utilizing organic/regenerative agriculture, and Walter Goldstein has reported increased carbon uptake through the use of the horn-manure preparation. The use of the horn-manure preparation increases microbial life and improves root structure, resulting in increased organic matter of the soil by the creation of stable humus.

Biodynamic agriculture is the ultimate regenerative system of agriculture: it is about innovation. Yes, we can boast that the community supported agriculture (CSA) model was initiated and advanced on biodynamic farms with the assistance of the Association. These days, CSA and local agriculture are no longer just novel ideas; they have gone mainstream. Many years ago a group of biodynamic farmers in New York and Massachusetts formed CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training) as an answer to the call for a better learning experience on their farms. This model has been replicated all over North America, improving the experience of farm apprenticeships. Renewal and betterment of apprenticeship training is currently taken on by the Agriculture Section of the Anthroposophical Society and supported by the Association. (You will read about this initiative in this issue of the journal). It was also at two biodynamic farms that a model lease was developed by Equity Trust, Inc., as an answer to the rising cost of land for new farmers. This model has been replicated by many local land trusts that discovered the need to create greater land security for beginning farmers without burdening the land with social appreciation.

It is with those small steps that we are working on realizing Steiner’s vision of a world whereby capital, credit, and land can be separated again and farms are an integral part of community. Our endeavors in land preservation, CSA, soil fertility management, and apprenticeship training help lay a foundation to assist beginning farmers; our farms continue to be the ultimate proof that we will be able to withstand any crisis cooked up by Wall Street.