{"id":69572,"key":"Biodynamic_Farming","title":"Biodynamic Farming","latest":{"id":1207840,"timestamp":"2025-11-27T22:59:38Z"},"content_model":"wikitext","license":{"url":"https://www.appropedia.org/Appropedia:Copyrights","title":"CC-BY-SA-4.0"},"source":"[[File:Grgich Hills vineyards.jpg|thumb|Biodynamic vineyards, with ample cover crop, in the California wine region of Napa Valley]]\n\nBiodynamic farming is the agricultural practices and philosophy that grew out of a course of eight lectures presented by the Austrian philosopher [[Rudolf Steiner]] (1861-1925) in June of 1924 at Koberwitz (it was then eastern Germany, it is now Kobierzyce, Poland).<ref>Steiner, Rudolf. (1924). The Agriculture Course (first English edition was 1929). Dornach: Goetheanum.</ref><ref name=\"first\">Paull, John (2011) [http://orgprints.org/18809/1/Paull2011KoberwitzEJSS.pdf \"Attending the First Organic Agriculture Course: Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture Course at Koberwitz, 1924\"], ''European Journal of Social Sciences'', 21(1):64-70.</ref> Steiner sought to steer agriculture away from the path of chemical agriculture and away from synthetic fertilisers.\n\nAt the Koberwitz lectures, Steiner founded the Experimental Circle of Anthroposophic Farmers and Gardeners. The task of the Experimental Circle was to put Steiner's farming ideas to the test and to develop them into a form suitable for publication. That was achieved in 1938 when Dr Ehrenfried Pfeiffer published his book, Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening.<ref>Pfeiffer, Ehrenfried. (1938). Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening, New York: Anthroposophic Press.</ref><ref>Paull, John (2011) [http://orgprints.org/19518/1/Paull2011SecretsJSRP.pdf \"The secrets of Koberwitz: The diffusion of Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture Course and the founding of Biodynamic Agriculture\"], ''Journal of Social Research & Policy'', 2(1):19-29.</ref>\n\nBiodynamic agriculture has developed a following around the world in its own right. But even more importantly, it influenced [[Lord Northbourne]] to develop Steiner's idea that the farm is an organism and to coin the term 'organic farming' in his 1940 book, Look to the Land.<ref>Northbourne, Lord. (1940). Look to the Land, London: Dent.</ref><ref name=\"Northb\">Paull, John (2014) [http://orgprints.org/26547/12/26547.pdf Lord Northbourne, the man who invented organic farming, a biography], Journal of Organic Systems, 9 (1), pp. 31-53.</ref>\n\nBiodynamic farming and organic farming alike avoid the use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, food irradiation, nanotechnology, and genetically modified organisms ([[GMO]]s).\n\n== Notes and references ==\n\n<references />\n\n== See also ==\n\n* [[Organic and sustainable farming]]\n* Anthroposophy\n* [[Sustainable agriculture]]\n* [[Rudolf Steiner]]\n\n== External Links ==\n\n[https://permies.com/t/57308/Evidence-biodynamic-agriculture Permies.com: Evidence for Biodynamic Agriculture]\n\n{{Page data\n| license = CC-BY-SA-3.0\n}}\n\n[[Category:Agriculture]]\n[[Category:Sustainable agriculture]]\n[[Category:Organic farming]]\n[[Category:Sustainable technologies]]"}