Granjas Demeter

Demeter Farms

Demeter was the Greek goddess to whom the first ears of grain were offered as thanks for new and fertile harvests.

Legend has it that the arrival of summer is due to the fact that Demeter finally found her daughter, Persephone, after 9 days and 9 nights of uninterrupted searching. During this period, which is actually 9 months, the earth was left completely barren.

Among organic farming methods, the biodynamic method, also known as biodynamics, is the one that goes the furthest in a holistic approach, both in its basic ideas and in practice, including a spiritual component.

Historically, it is the origin of the development of organic agriculture.

Demeter means special care throughout the entire cultivation and production process, until it reaches our homes, providing the best of the organic world.

Products from biodynamic agriculture are certified by the DEMETER seal, the strictest guarantee in organic agriculture worldwide.  This seal guarantees the highest quality and the products that bear it indicate that they have been grown or produced following the principles of biodynamic agriculture, by people who are fully committed to caring for nature.

Rudolf Steiner and the spiritual foundations for the prosperity of agriculture

This entire movement originates from some lectures given by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), an Austrian philosopher, architect, social reformer and even acclaimed clairvoyant who founded the "Anthroposophical" school of thought, which included a path of spiritual education applied to a series of areas of life such as art, society and agriculture, based on the freedom of man and the development of his soul and spirit.

These lectures were compiled in the Geisteswissenschaftliche Grundlagen zum  Gedeihen der Landwirtschaft - Spiritual Foundations for the Prosperity of Agriculture (Steiner, 1925), also known as The Farmer's Course .  And it was during this course that a “Circle” was founded  Agricultural Experimental School of the Anthroposophical Society.”

According to Steiner, "the human being is the basis": the organism is understood as a living entity more or less closed in on itself with the corresponding organs. An evolving individuality, a singular and unique being.  In this sense, the farm is like an organism and at the same time, an agricultural individuality.

Therefore, the interrelations between organs such as crops, orchards, virgin lands, farm animals, or between soil, plants, livestock, etc., on the same farm, are intensified by practices  biodynamic.

In this biodynamic cycle, everything has a use (soil, grass, manure), nothing is wasted, which helps to strengthen “individual organs” and also stimulate the self-regulation of agriculture.  The aim of this agricultural system is to ensure sustainable fertility, good yield capacity, healthy agriculture and high nutritional quality of the products.

Today, these considerations correspond to terms such as resistance or better , resilience that plays an important role in the current debate on sustainability (Darnhofer & Co.)

Resilience describes a system’s ability to cope with change. In agriculture, it can rely on diversity, a holistic view, and closed cycles. These three natural levels also lead to stability.

Research and spirituality

Biodynamic agriculture emerged from the “Experimental Circle” founded during Steiner’s lectures, where the recommendations made by Steiner himself were tested and put into practice. To make them work in agriculture, he carried out active field research that is now known as the “participatory” or “on-farm research” approach.  Comparative studies have been carried out between biodynamic and conventional agriculture since 1930.

What does this have to do with spirituality?

In its understanding of nature, Biodynamics is based on a hierarchy of kingdoms (levels of action) where matter is formed by a higher living element.

Living beings are ordered by the soul in animals and humans.

In man, the soul is structured by the "I" or spiritual identity.

In plants, for example, this self-identity is represented by the species.

The natural sciences, which today function almost exclusively in a reductionist manner, are thus expanded by new dimensions, which is particularly important in the case of biology or agriculture. These dimensions can be attributed to natural qualities such as the following, in additive order: the mineral is above all physical-chemical, the plant adds life, the animal the soul and the human being the Ego. (Milestad, 2003, Hubenthal, 2012). (Steiner, 1925; Wegmann, 1925)

The controversy arises when this movement has been classified as a religion, since those who follow its parameters consider it a "science of the spirit", defending the rigor of its research, based on the principle that the ultimate nature of reality rests on the spirit. That is why farmers who practice biodynamics assume the existence, not always explicitly, of a spiritual power whose origin and formulation, in most cases, according to its detractors, they do not know.

The rules to be biodynamic

The original practices of biodynamic agriculture include, among other standards, the observation of the planets in relation to the zodiacal constellations, attributing to the different relative positions of the celestial bodies certain influences on the growth of plants and farm animals, relationships that occur through cosmic energies, the balance or imbalance of which can generate better or worse harvests and pests or diseases on the farm.

These rules were set out by Steiner in eight lectures given in 1924, responding to the needs expressed to him by German farmers at the time, in a context of devastation and post-war.

The evolution that scientific knowledge, including that of agricultural sciences, has experienced in almost a century makes it difficult to find a literal interpretation of these rules today, which, together with the explicit assumption of astrological cosmology, has earned biodynamics the label of pseudoscience.

For indigenous communities in Latin America and native communities in North America, however, these practices were, in some way, already implicit since ancient times.  To put a tobacco prayer, for example, when burying a dead animal is to honor the spirit of that being that sacrificed its life so that its meat, milk, fat, skin or bladder would allow the continuity of human life. Western societies may consider it pseudoscience, but it has an important spiritual and cultural background that has prevailed for years and definitely has an effect on the lives of those who believe and practice it.

Likewise, the fact that the manure of some animals is used to fertilize the soil or to build the walls of their houses is classified as pseudoscience, is rather a great contribution from those who lived and continue to live like this in the countryside and indigenous communities.

Fishermen on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts know when it is a full moon or a new moon because when the tides rise or fall, their cast net may or may not become fuller.

Women in many families know that trimming their hair when it recedes makes it grow back stronger and fuller.

If there are still people who think that we are standing on a hard thing called earth and have not yet understood that it is a living and intelligent being, or still believe that because it is round and does not speak like us, it is not alive?

Remember that our food does not grow in refrigerators and on supermarket shelves.

The current director of the Agriculture Section of the Anthroposophical Society claims that “biodynamics is not only a ritual, but it is also a ritual” that imprints on its products values ​​that do not emanate from their physical nature, but from ritualizations, as happens, for example, with products subjected to kosher or halal rituals. Values ​​that are only appreciated if it is declared that they have been acquired, and only have an effect on those who believe in their efficacy. An assertion that is equally valid for the producers and consumers of the products, according to the text by Jaume Estruch, Biodynamics.  From earth to sky.

Demeter or ecological overcoming

In its current version, biodynamics is functionally presented as a "stricter" organic farming, emphasizing avoiding as much as possible the exceptions that European regulations dictate for organic farming, especially in the use of some practices and additives, as well as restricting the use of hybrid and genetically manipulated varieties and specimens.

Taking these practices into account, the category of organic farming is fully applicable to biodynamic farming in regulatory matters, since it easily meets the requirements in terms of restrictions. Beyond obtaining organic certification according to EU standards, the Demeter Association, a private organisation, sets guidelines and issues biodynamic certifications to farms that request and comply with them. These are not public standards and, therefore, are not subject to any scrutiny other than that carried out by the association itself. There is also no known penalty regime.

However, there is one unique feature of biodynamics that clearly sets it apart from other agricultural practices, including organic farming, and which is mandatory for those aspiring to Demeter certification: the use of so-called "preparations".

Preparations = Homeopathy for the soil

The preparations are obtained by stuffing cow horns or animal organs with manure or parts of some plants used in traditional medicine.

The mission of the animal part is to "concentrate the constructive and zone-forming vital forces on the substance of the organ, a process comparable to the potentiation of homeopathic medicines."

After remaining underground for several months, small amounts of these contents are mixed with the compost.

There are two types of preparations: compost preparations that are added to natural fertilizer, which can be compost from certain plants or manure, and spray preparations, in which the contents are harmoniously mixed with water and sprayed onto the fields. The information provided by Demeter on the preparations indicates that the mixing of the mixture occurs with small amounts of preparation and at certain rhythms, which is why it is called "homeopathy for the soil".

The preparation of the preparations, as in almost all biodynamics, does not escape incorporating spiritual nuances. In its information, Demeter explains that “many biodynamicists experience a meditative state of mind when stirring the aerosol preparations in the water barrel, an inner connection with everything […], a mixture of contemplation and inspiration. But they also [experience] something inaccessible in the process, a mental activity that can only be improperly understood.

The abundant information on the preparations, which are obligatory, leaves no doubt that these are the ritual elements required for the development of a ceremony that describes both its preparation and its dissemination through the fields.

For critics, performing a ritual, connecting with the spirit of the earth, plants and/or animals is a farce, but the curious thing is that organic farming, permaculture and biodynamics are becoming increasingly popular.  Perhaps because industrial methods have led to a great deterioration of the ecosystem as well as to the high consumption of chemicals in food, which has resulted in diseases such as cancer.

This is reinforced by the awareness of many people who seek to change conventional methods implemented by large industries, as well as to approach the knowledge of traditional cultures that have been able to survive for thousands of years without using chemicals. This trend has opened up a whole range of possibilities for living in symbiosis with nature.

The 9 preparations of biodynamic agriculture

An article in Mother Earth News magazine shows nine "preparations" used in Biodynamics (BD): Horn Manure BD#500, Horn Silica BD#501, Yarrow BD#502, Chamomile BD#503, Nettle BD#504, Oak Bark BD#505, Dandelion BD#506, Valerian BD#507, and Horsetail BD#508. BD#502-507 are collectively known as the Compost Preparations.

The BD#500 is a cow horn filled with cow manure and buried in the ground for the winter.

BD#501 is silica packed in a cow horn buried in the ground for the summer.

BD#502 are yarrow flowers planted in a deer bladder that is hung in the summer sun and buried for the winter.

BD#503 are chamomile flowers stuffed into a bovine intestine and buried during the winter.

BD#504 is the whole nettle plant ground up and buried in the soil surrounded by peat moss for a full year.

BD#505 is ground oak bark packed into an empty skull with the membrane intact and buried in bog like conditions for winter.

BD#506 are dandelion flowers embedded in the bovine mesentery or peritoneum membrane and buried for the winter.

BD#507 is the juice of valerian flowers that is fermented for a few weeks.

BD#508 is a tea made from the horsetail plant.

According to the same publication, Steiner believed that burying the preparations in the earth gave them cosmic and earthly energy, although Steiner himself was a vegetarian. 

For those interested, it is suggested to try to obtain the ingredients for the preparations in the same region.

Applications of 501 and 507 raise the depth of the top surface level to a depth of 14 inches over several years, according to the biodynamic wineries.

Using cover crops and adding compost to the soil is the backbone of organic practices that have been shown to increase the topsoil depth of Biodynamic soil.

Farmers believe that spray applications improve these practices to another level.

BD#508 spray is used to combat fungal conditions.

The best way to test the theories of biodynamics is to try them yourself with the ingredients and preparations indicated.

One of the best strategies to start with, according to the author of the article, is to separate the organic waste produced in your home from the rest of the trash.  This forms “Compost”.

Eventually, compost tea bags can be placed in a bucket of water to water the garden pots.  Allow to air as recommended by the Biodynamic protocol.

The used compost tea bags are then composted and can be returned to the garden.

How much devotion there is  in the practice of Demeter farmers

It is clear that these practices have an ingredient of personal-spiritual experience.  His critics, however, speculate that “some farmers who practice biodynamics ignore the discourse on cosmic forces that Demeter spreads.  Although they mostly follow astrological indications, they do not internalize the spiritual content of their guidelines, and they do not assume the liturgical value of the rites they perform, but they make the preparations and, in making them, they reproduce such rites, assuming that in this way and not in another they acquire some kind of "non-natural" property." ( Acenology ).

However, people who work with plants and ancestral medicines have found an intuitive understanding that these methods are on the right track. Furthermore, we now have access to ancestral knowledge such as Ayurveda and other knowledge proposed by indigenous communities in North, Central and South America.

In this video Sadhguru shows us how to approach water consumption; and I would dare to add, everything that is going to be consumed by us.

Sources


1. All information, guidelines and manuals from Demeter can be found on their website: https://www.demeter.de/ . Particularly significant is the section dedicated to preparations: https://www.demeter.de/fachwelt/landwirte/praeparate/biodynamischen_praeparate .

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