What Can Biodynamics Contribute to the Future of Agriculture? The Biodynamic Food Chain

“As a culture we seem to have arrived at a place where whatever native wisdom we may have possessed about eating has been replaced by confusion and anxiety.  How did we ever get to the point where we need investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from and nutritionists to determine the dinner menu?”
    -    Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma
The modern agricultural landscape is indeed a confusing place. Seemingly contradictory statements, like “eating is an agricultural act” and “it’s just lunch,” muddle our perception of what, in fact, “agriculture” means. Even our once-firm ideological grip on the combined economic-agricultural agenda of the organic movement is being challenged by the appearance of organic foods in Wal-Mart and McDonald’s.
In this context, biodynamic agriculture is even less well understood than organic agriculture. Given this reality, it is certainly easy to be pessimistic about the potential impact of a movement so firmly planted on the fringe of mainstream society’s agricultural understanding. (A movement, it should be noted, whose name is still categorized as a misspelled word in the world’s most widely used word-processing program.) These concerns aside, we can draw some encouragement by remembering that smaller, stimulant effects are more important and more potent than direct chemical-physical ones – at least as Rudolf Steiner refers to them when discussing the fertilization of our soils. If we can appreciate the potentially healing effects of homeopathic medications in agriculture, can we not assume that biodynamics is the homeopathic remedy for our socio-agricultural ills?
In considering this question, I want to focus on two of the major insights that Rudolf Steiner presented in his eight agricultural lectures, which, despite having been given in 1924, remain acutely modern and applicable. At the end I would also like to glance a bit into the future, and explore ways in which we can incorporate these insights into our daily lives.
First, Rudolf Steiner laid out an archetype for the development of each farm, thereby providing all farmers and gardeners with the necessary tools to build and manage their farms and gardens. Second, he made it clear that in order for agriculture to thrive, it must exist as a focal point and foundation within the larger social context – thus giving all consumers the relevant parameters to make educated food choices.
In order to take a first step toward transforming the modern agricultural landscape, I will use these two concepts to develop and describe a biodynamic food chain, one that links us, through what we eat, to the fertility of the earth and the energy of the sun.
A living being can exist only in a context that favors its life, and one could almost say that its surroundings are an inextricable part of it (a seamless hierarchy of holons within holons). Likewise, agriculture cannot exist, let along thrive, in a vacuum. We are dealing with the basis of life! If we want to preserve a species, we need to preserve its habitat, and judging by sheer numbers, even farmers are approaching “endangered species” status. So what is the context and habitat needed to preserve and enliven farming and with it the farmers?
Here now are some of the components of this vital context.
In the future, we will need to make progress and changes in all these areas if agriculture is to thrive again.
    •    Land use (wildlife, recreation, housing, farming/gardening)
    •    Land tenure (farming and ownership of land can be two distinct issues for the future)
    •    Landscapes/farmscapes (our food choices determine what kind of landscape develops)
    •    Nutrition and food preparation
    •    Socio-economic conditions (associative economics and personal relationships)
    •    Education (can we inspire and inform the younger generations to see the big picture?)
    •    Therapy (role of foods and local remedies and farmscapes in the process of healing)
    •    Training/mentoring (most future farmers did not grow up on farms)
    •    Energy use (can we integrate more and more renewable energy into our farms?)
…Let me paint a picture of the biodynamic food chain ….
It will be rooted in an individualized, humanized, cultured land and farmscape; employ fair and just labor and trade practices; support an associative, local and regional distribution and retail store system; have fair and transparent pricing; continuously strive to lower its reliance on fossil fuels; make the sun the main energy supplier; results in more human beings working the land; provide local whole and minimally processed food, tasty and full of vigor and health for the incarnating individuals; support farm-based research and quality monitoring; attract young farmers; and encourage us to eat from our local food sheds as much as possible.
In this futuristic, but certainly attainable, scenario, it will be possible for all of us to take full responsibility for our meals and, with good conscience, “pay the full karmic price” for our meals. We will be harmoniously and respectfully linking the earth and its fertility with the energy of the sun.
The road from where we are today to where we need to go leads straight through each one of us. Very humbly, we need to begin right there. Here are my suggestions:
1)    Make it personal! This is what it says on the European Union building in Brussels in regard to climate change: “It is up to you – you control climate change. Turn down, Switch off, Recycle, Walk, Change.” I think all these encouragements are also applicable to our food choices – we need to learn to value, support, and enjoy local foods, relearn how to prepare them well, and be very conscious of how we spend our food dollars.
2)    Progress today is only possible via real collaboration. The time of the lone wolf is over. The issues we need to work on are too complex and multi-faceted to be solved by just individuals. We need to support one another, focus and collaborate; maybe we need to consider the formation of clusters of like-minded farmers and consumers for maximum effectiveness.
3)    Strive for a deeper understanding of the phenomena around us. Really “see” and experience that “spirit is never without matter and matter is never without spirit.”
4)    We need to step out of our comfort zones, over and over again. Only by cherishing opportunities to “feel uncomfortable,” and yes, even looking for them, will we be able to grow inwardly.
5)  Identify and address the real needs in our own context (communities). By truly becoming part of a place and its surroundings, we will be able to guarantee that success of our endeavors. In fact, the lively and honest give and take between “inner and outer” is a prerequisite for the true health of any being.
Steffen Schneider is the Treasurer of the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association and the Farm Manager at Hawthorne Valley Farm, a certified Biodynamic farm in Ghent, New York.