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  • From: Allan Balliett <allan.balliett AT gmail.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Alan Chadwick book from Logosophia: Performance In the Garden
  • Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2013 20:10:07 -0500

Richard, 

I'm not at all certain that you understand how established Biodynamic Agriculture is,

Along with "Just Do It," which means try it before you condemn it, goes "The Proof is in the Pudding,"  which is what brought me into biodynamics.

Here's a wikipedia article on the quality of biodynamic wine, as demonstrated in professional wine tastings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_wine

Biodynamics may be 'fringe' in the USofA but it is well established around the world. It has it's own certifying agency, in fact, if I recall correctly, it is the oldest organic food certifying agency in the world. It's called DEMETER. US Demeter has been going great guns for the last 10 years, after a very long period of "subtle management."

The US Biodynamic Association (BDA) (the one that can answer "How many biodynamic farmers does it take to screw in a light bulb") is at www.biodynamics.com. Biodynamics pre-dates Rodale organics. 75 years for the BDA! 

ON top of all this, I've never been to the farm of a worthwhile organic grower, a grower of note, one who I sought out to learn something from, who didn't, it would turne out, use the biodynamics Stella Natura planting calendar. No scientific proof there. Ask your extension agent "Should I plant by the moon?" But then ask any experienced farmer or gardener "Does the moon affect the growth of plants" and you're bound to get substantially different answers. Sciene says "The Moon doesn't affect plant growth" just as Science used to say "Humans dream in black and white but THINK they dream in color."

Enough

-Allan in WV


On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Richard Robinson <rrobinson AT nasw.org> wrote:
On 2/15/2013 at 3:10:25 PM, Allan Balliett wrote:

> Nobody, my self included, should be
> rude to strangers, let along those who appear to want to learn, but the need
> to apply the scientific method to a horticulture system that was designed to
> remediate problems that Science has brought into the land and food can make
> someone who actually practices biodynamics quite angry.

The scientific method has a pretty good track record of taking specialized knowledge out of the hands of a priesthood and putting it into the hands of anyone who wants to use its methods. It is also the only system of obtaining knowledge that includes an instructional manual for systematically uncovering and correcting error in its results, even (especially) error by those with most status. To say that science has brought problems into the land and food confuses science with greed and ignorance. Scientists are not immune from the latter two, but neither are the two restricted to scientists, and knowing quite a few of them as I do, as a group they tend to be generally less greedy and ignorant than many other groups.

> Let "proof"
> go and just DO IT!

Interactions between plants and microbes in the soil (and out of it) are so complex that it is tempting to abandon attempts to understand them in any scientific way--that is, to understand them in a way that depends on observation, hypothesis, and experiment, with constant refinement of one's model. But the alternative is to never add to the pool of knowledge in a way that reliably advances agriculture. To place biodynamics outside the realm of science is to do it, and farmers, no favors.

  Richard Robinson
  www.nasw.org/users/rrobinson/
  Hopestill Farm
  www.hopestill.com
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