Theme Image

Biodynamic® History

It all began in 1924 with a series of lectures on agriculture by Dr. Rudolf Steiner, a highly respected European philosopher and scientist. It was his take on agriculture that became the opposing view to those who, at the same time, were initiating the rapid movement for widespread use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. By 1928, Demeter had become the official certifier of Biodynamic® farming in Europe. In the 40's the term "organic" was coined by an English Biodynamic farmer and agricultural professor at Oxford. He said that this term was inspired by Steiner's view of the farm as a single living organism. As Biodynamic farming was picking up steam in Europe by the 1950's, the term "organic" started to grow popular in American agriculture. Still, it wasn't till 1985 that US Demeter Certification was established.

Only when we look back to where it all began can we fully understand the meaning of Biodynamic. It was Steiner who felt that everything produced on a Biodynamic farm would be better, because the focus was on managing the entire farm as a single interdependent organism rather than a series of individual parts. A majority of fertilizing on a Biodynamic farm, for example, would come from recycling all the organic material generated on the farm to grow crops, as opposed to synthetic chemicals or stripping the natural resources from another location and transporting them to the farm. Bottom line, the farm sets the limit for what it can produce, and is not forced to do any more than it was meant to. This "natural limit" prevents humans from overusing the earth's natural resources, and protects the environment by drastically reducing CO2 emissions that come from transporting, mining and refining these materials.