Biodynamic Agriculture

Biodynamic agriculture, or biodynamics, is based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner.

Biodynamic agriculture, or biodynamics, is based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner. In Schloss Koberwitz in Silesia, Germany, in 1924, shortly before his death, Steiner delivered eight lectures on an ecological and sustainable system of agriculture that would respect all creation while producing food for humans. Steiner believed that the introduction of chemicals in farming methods was a major mistake, as he found that it decreased the vitality in seeds dramatically. He also noted that crop rotation was now necessary on land that previously grew the same crops every year. Plants had become dependent on the inorganic chemical fertilizers and could no longer gather their own nutrients and minerals from the earth. He asserted that as humans ate these weak plants, they would also lose their will.

The terms “biologically dynamic” and “biodynamic” were not coined by Steiner, however, but rather by his followers. Although it predates the term organic farming, it includes many of the same ideas. It also has a mystical, anthroposophical focus on the soil and regarded the life on and in it as a sentient, living system.

Steiner believed that food was degrading because of the use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers, but not because of their biological or chemical properties. Rather, he believed these substances lacked spiritual energy. Steiner saw the world and everything living in it as basically spiritual in nature, with the chemical or biological processes being secondary. He also believed that organic matter was different from inorganic matter, a philosophy commonly called vitalism in his day. Many of Steiner's writings describe energy flows radiating from the earth. These flows have also been called the Odic force.

Another aspect of his teaching is the idea that the farm as a whole is a living system and should therefore be a self-nourishing system. Disease should not be treated in isolation but rather as a symptom of problems in the whole organism.

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