One hundred years ago (June 1924) the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner he gave a series of lectures in Kobierzyce near Wrocław, which is considered to be the birth of ecological and biodynamic agriculture.
On the centenary of this event, the Demeter Polska Association organized, together with partners: the Polish Anthroposophical Society and the Living Earth Coalition, a conference entitled 100th Anniversary of Biodynamic and Organic Agriculture. The conference was held under the honorary patronage of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Federation of Scientific and Technical Associations NOT.
Maintaining environmental balance depends on limiting conventional methods of cultivation and agricultural production and the use of chemical plant protection products such as pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Soil degradation with significant chemicalization with mineral fertilizers, biocides or growth regulators leads to loss of biodiversity. It also causes a significant deterioration in the quality of produced fruit and vegetables, warned experts participating in the conference. It was attended by representatives of the scientific community, researchers, farmers and supporters of biodynamic agriculture. In their speeches they emphasised that agricultural production should be conducted in such a way as to ensure proper health of plants and animals. This is guaranteed by biodynamic farming, as a type of organic farming. Rudolf Steiner believed that crops were influenced by, among other things, phases of the moon, seasons or days of the year, therefore life on the farm should go according to them. He was the first to write down and propagate the ideas of the conformity of these principles with the laws of nature and the universe.
– All activities on the farm are undertaken in accordance with a specially developed biodynamic calendar, which provides specific days and sometimes even hours suitable for planting individual plants – informed Paweł Bietkowski, president of the Demeter Polska Association, the main organizer of the conference. – A farm should maintain a balance between plant and animal production, because this creates a complex organism in which the means of agricultural production are produced directly on site. Compost and biodynamic preparations produced on such farms play a fundamental role in maintaining soil fertility and producing healthy food.
Jolanta Czudak
Read more: https://www.sigma-not.pl/zeszyt-7517-przeglad-techniczny-2024-6.html
