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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Biodynamics and Permaculture « Biodynamics Blog
  • Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:26:41 -0400


Biodynamics and Permaculture « Biodynamics Blog
https://biodynamicsbda.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/biodynamics-
and-permaculture/

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Welcome to our new blog, where we'll be posting short features, current news overviews and announcements, and discussions. For more resources and information on biodynamics, visit our website at www.biodynamics.com. Please comment and let us know your thoughts! Interested in contributing? Email rebecca@biodynamics.com.

Biodynamics and Permaculture
August 11, 2010
tags: biodynamic, permaculture
by biodynamicsbda

We’ve been getting some questions recently about the relationship between biodynamics and permaculture and how they may overlap. Mark Shepard, who will be talking about these synergies during one of our National Conference workshops, gave us a brief overview…with caveats, of course, that this is a complex topic not easily boiled down into a soundbite!

The 2010 Biodynamic National Conference is less than two months away and momentum is growing! Check out all the details on our conference page. We hope to see you there!

"According to Rudolf Steiner, one of the stated goals for farmers to create is an independent farm individuality — a self-reliant farm organism. Steiner gave several exercises for people to undertake so that they would be able to perceive invisible forces and begin to work with them. He also stated that each farm entity had to discover and design into the farm, the proper proportions of meadows and forests, thickets, brush, streams, and ponds, and to discover the proper kinds and quantities of livestock to have on the farm. When this goal is accomplished, the farm will become a closed-loop, self-sustaining individual entity. In my workshop we will go over all this with footnotes, exercises, and references etc.

Permaculture (Permanent Agriculture/Permanent Culture) is a design methodology whereby human beings consciously create their own self-sustaining habitat that, (according to Bill Mollison, the movement’s founder) is ecologically sound and economically profitable. Permaculture relies heavily on observation of nature. Everywhere in the universe there are observable patterns. The patterns of nature reveal functions and invisible forces that are at work. Understanding the invisible forces is done via the patterns that they leave in the material world. These patterns can then be imitated in our farm and garden design in order to manifest those forces and functions naturally without expensive, external inputs.

My opinion is that all biodynamic farmers, if they stick with it and really dive deep to understand Steiner’s Agriculture Lectures and really (not just on paper, workshops, or blogs) strive to create a self-sustaining farm individuality in reality on planet earth, they will eventually find themselves farming in what can be called a Permaculture system — an ecologically sound, economically profitable farm individuality with the proper proportions of meadows and woods, thickets, streams, forests, and livestock.

This little statement is hardly a definition either of Biodynamics or Permaculture, but it indicates what we’ll be discussing in my presentation."





  • [permaculture] Biodynamics and Permaculture « Biodynamics Blog, Lawrence F. London, Jr., 08/11/2010

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