“O

rganic” has been a buzzword in food, agriculture and health circles for a long time, and just about every third product you come across these days boasts a contemporary (and usually more expensive) “organic” label. Increasing numbers of consumers think they understand what the term encompasses, yet not many people can say the same about the more esoteric word “biodynamic”. The correct translation from the German – life-force farming – contains the key to understanding how it differs from organic (and conventional) farming, but first there’s a story from long ago that has to be told…

Agriculture then and now

Since agriculture began – and up to 1910 – every farmer on the planet was an organic farmer. Rivers were still pristine and clear, but today most river water is brown because of the quantities of artificial nitrogen, other poisons and topsoil that end up in it. (This excess of nitrogen and phosphorus has also caused 405 dead, oxygen-starved zones in our oceans where it’s no longer possible for marine life to survive.)

In 1910, German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch developed the HaberBosch process, which put farmers in a position to feed their crops with artificial nitrogen. Most farmers were over the moon about this discovery, because they were no longer required to work as hard and, instead of using the manure produced by their livestock as fertiliser, they were able to buy artificial fertiliser in bags. As if that weren’t enough, it was around this time tractors became more popular and bigger in size (one of the main reasons about 300km2 of topsoil is lost every day).

It wasn’t long before the first problems started showing: countless farmers began struggling with fertility – of the soil and of the crops they planted, as well as their animals – and in 1924 a group of beleaguered farmers approached scientist and philosopher Dr Rudolf Steiner, asking for his insights. Steiner, who delivered about 6 000 lectures in Europe during his lifetime, gave eight lectures over three days in which he explained to the farmers how they had to set about growing food >

Angus McIntosh, a biodynamic farmer and the writer of this article, splashes the biodynamic preparation BD500 in his vineyard late in the afternoon so the earth can “breathe it in”.