Bio Dynamic Agriculture – making organic farming work

Bio Dynamic Agriculture, introduced in 1924 during agriculture lectures given by Rudolf Steiner to a small group of farmers on a farm estate in Koberwitz, East Germany is a method of farming that aims to treat the farm as a living system which interacts with the environment, to build healthy, living soil and to produce food that nourishes and vitalizes and helps to develop mankind. The underlying principle of bio dynamics is making life-giving compost out of dead material.

According to Steiner, plants not only grow through the fertility of the soil, but also with the support of the cosmos- the rhythms of the sun, moon, planets and the wider constellations of the zodiac. This cosmic support streams into the earth through the living nature of the soil and is important for the healthy growth and quality of the plants.

Steiner also pointed out that, as the earth becomes older the soil naturally becomes weaker and is less able to absorb these cosmic rhythms. In order to re-enliven the stressed soil, He introduced the practice of making various preparations based on cow manure, silica and various herbal plants. Some of the herbal plants used for these preparations are, German Chamomile, Yarrow, Horsetail, Dandelion and Valerian. The main preparations used in Bio Dynamic farming are preparation 500, which is cow dung based and preparation 501, also called cow horn silica preparation. There are also the preparations 502-507, made using various herbal plants mentioned above. This group of preparations is generally used to make composts, liquid manures and cow pat pits (CPPs)

Preparation 508, made out of Equisetum is also used to protect plants from fungi attacks.

With regular application of the cow horn preparation, liquid manure, CPP manure and BD compost, your soil will have a higher organic matter content, soil respiration, friability, aeration, more earthworms, lower bulk density, deeper topsoil layer and the roots of the plants will go deeper resulting in a healthy and strong plant.

Target Agriculture started using the Bio Dynamic farming methods, which have proven to be very successful following a bio dynamic workshop held by Dr. Peter Proctor from New Zealand.