Tadeu Caldas has worked with biodynamic agriculture worldwide for the last 40 years. He started his career in collaboration with the late biodynamic scientist Prof. Dr. Herbert Koepf in 1978 and later as a teacher and director of his full-time Biodynamic Agriculture and Rural Development Course at Emerson College in England from 1984 to 1993. Between 1990 and 94, a defining period for the global ecological agriculture movement, Tadeu was elected for two terms to serve as a member of the Board of Directors of IFOAM, implementing the initial outreach of the federation into Asia, Africa and Latin America. His advisory work has taken him to 60 countries of all climates and continents supporting companies, groups of farmers, international NGOs, corporations and development agencies. He developed pioneering biodynamic projects with many types of crops in diverse climates, with special emphasis on tropical, sub-tropical and Mediterranean farming systems. He is concerned with the development of sustainable, economically feasible biodynamic projects with optimal yields and returns through state-of-the-art soil fertility and plant nutrition strategies for optimal quality and productivity. To achieve these aims he makes use of modern composting systems and pest & disease control strategies. The use and local manufacture of biodynamic preparations plays a central role in this process, as well as the development of practical innovations with this unique method. As part of the advisory process he provides technical training to farmers, project staff and researchers. His latest research into quantum physics as a means of understanding the special dynamics of preparations is producing some interesting results. Some of his latest pioneering breakthroughs were developing strategies for bio-saline agriculture in the desert of Oman; innovative pest control strategies for a Pan-African project funded by the DEG, BMZ and Gates Foundation reaching almost one million small-holder cotton farmers as well as new biodynamic preparations in China. Current projects in Israel, Pakistan, Portugal, Spain, Peru and China. Up-coming projects in Algeria and Thailand.
For more details: www.ecotropic-consulting.com
