Biodynamic agriculture originates from the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, founder of the school that takes his name. The general principles can be applied to gardening because biodynamics expresses general concepts applicable to all living organisms: the assumption is that plants are living organisms that are placed between the earth and the cosmos.
The garden therefore becomes a complex organism, in which plants, soil, animals, water, air and cosmic forces are the factors that, if appropriately used, contribute to recreating an internal balance.
The birth of biodynamic agriculture dates back to 1924. Already at that time, in fact, several farmers were concerned about the deterioration of the quality of the elements. In particular, they noticed that the soil was losing its fertility, the germination duration of seeds was decreasing and the animals were less and less reproductive, they also observed with great clamor that potatoes no longer had the flavor they once had… and it was only 1924!
Faced with such a panorama, farmers requested practical advice on how to intervene from a scientist of the time, Dr. Rudolf Steiner. Through a course, held in Koberwitz, this scientist gave general indications on how to address and resolve such problems. Among his teachings we remember: “. The earth is a living organism and not an inert substrate on which to put mineral salts and that’s it…” or: “… the plant is a living being that connects between the earth and the cosmos…”, and again: “the psychological health of man is supported by the intrinsic nutritional value of food”.
All this is collected in the book: “Scientific and spiritual impulses for the progress of agriculture”. The farmers who then participated in that course immediately put into practice the indications received and it was they themselves who gave the discipline the name of “biodynamic agriculture”, precisely because it involves cultivating the land by setting life (bio) in motion (dynamic), without anything backfiring against man and the environment, both in the short and long term. “To be good farmers – says Rudolf Steiner – you have to get in tune with the laws of Nature, and recognize the action of spiritual and material forces in natural manifestations.
Without this recognition – Steiner always says – the land degrades more and more until desertification and the degeneration of food”. The development of this method of agriculture experienced great development, so much so that at the end of the 1930s in Germany there were already more than 50 biodynamic companies and several others scattered around Europe.
The Second World War suppressed their development, but the biodynamic movement remained active, regained strength after the war, and arrived in Italy in the 1950s, emerging conspicuously in the early 1980s. Currently in our country there are about a thousand biodynamic companies and every year their number increases.