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European Alliance of Initiatives
for Applied Anthroposophy

Biodynamic agriculture

Biodynamic agriculture
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Biodynamic agriculture and the Demeter trademark

At the invitation of Count Carl von Keyserlingk (1869–1928) and his wife Johanna Skene, from 7th to 16th June 1924 a course for farmers and land owners took place on the Koberwitz estate in what is now Poland. The course, entitled ‘The spiritual scientific fundamentals for a thriving agriculture’, was the start of this most sustainable approach to agriculture, which developed in parallel with the expanding agro-chemical and industrial agriculture, and is now practised worldwide.

Here too the human being - the farm community - is at the centre of the farm, as the more than 11,000 Demeter-certified farms across the world show, for example: Dottenfelderhof Bad Vilbel/Frankfurt, Germany, Sekem near Cairo in Egypt and Juchowo in Poland. The soil is treated with biodynamic preparations produced on the farm. This regenerates the soil and improves humus content. Encouraging plant diversity, providing insect habitats, planting hedges for nesting birds, all of course have a role.

Of the animals, the cow has a special position, and whether in the cow shed or out at pasture, its full dignity is respected. It is unthinkable that these animals should be de-horned or disbudded in order to cram more cows into the barn and increase profitability.

Manfred Klett formulates the ideal of such an agriculture that harmoniously interconnects Man and nature in the foreword of his book “Von der Agrartechnologie zur Landbaukunst. Eine Landwirtschaft der Zukunft (From agri-technology to the art of farming = an agriculture of the future)”: ‘On this path we experience ourselves as always being at the beginning. The ideas won from spiritual science are the guiding stars of daily work, what can be achieved is but part of a development whose richness is revealed by the creative power and therefore the truth of these ideas’.

Significant research results on biodynamic agriculture can be found here:

research results