What is Sustainable Agriculture?
Sustainable agriculture is environmentally sound. It conserves and enriches the soil, protects the quality of the water, and encourages a diversity of plant and animal species. Sustainable agriculture is not a prescribed set of farming practices but only those practices that are right for a given farm or region or crop. Sustainable agriculture maintains agricultural productivity and economic viability. Sustainable agriculture practices may include reducing or eliminating the use of agricultural chemicals. Low-input agriculture, organic farming, biodynamic farming, regenerative agriculture, and permaculture are examples of farming systems that fall within the scope of sustainable agriculture.
What's ahead for sustainable agriculture?
The future of sustainable agriculture has never looked more promising or more challenging. On the one hand, the number of acres in organic production continues to rise, and sales of organic foods are growing at 20 to 25 percent a year. ... On the other hand, crop subsidies to factory farms continue to grow. Large seed and chemical companies are lobbying hard for genetically modified plants and other organisms that are resistant to (and, therefore, require) agricultural chemicals. Water-quality issues still dog many of America's most productive agricultural regions.
More crop producers are shifting toward more sustainable practices each year, and more beef and dairy producers moving toward pasture-based production. >>>more
What is Biodynamic Farming?
Biodynamic Farming & Compost Preparation
By Steve Diver - Agriculture Specialist
National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT)
Excerpt:
Biodynamic agriculture was the first ecological farming system to arise in response to commercial fertilizers and specialized agriculture after the turn of the century, yet it remains largely unknown to the modern farmer and land-grant university system. The contribution of biodynamics to organic agriculture is significant, however, and warrants more attention. The following provides an overview of biodynamic farming and includes additional details and resources on the specialized practice of biodynamic composting.
In a nutshell, biodynamics can be understood as a combination of "biological dynamic" agriculture practices. "Biological" practices include a series of well-known organic farming techniques that improve soil health. "Dynamic" practices are intended to influence biological as well as metaphysical aspects of the farm (such as increasing vital life force), or to adapt the farm to natural rhythms (such as planting seeds during certain lunar phases).
The concept of dynamic practice - those practices associated with non-physical forces in nature like vitality, life force, ki, subtle energy and related concepts - is a commonality that also underlies many systems of alternative and complementary medicine. It is this latter aspect of biodynamics which gives rise to the characterization of biodynamics as a spiritual or mystical approach to alternative agriculture. See the following table for a brief summary of biological and dynamic farming practices.
The higher, non-physical realms include etheric, astral, and ego. It is the complicated terminology and underlying metaphysical concepts of Steiner which makes biodynamics hard to grasp, yet these are inherent in the biodynamic approach and therefore they are listed here for the reader's reference.
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Life energy is a colloquial way of saying etheric life force. Again, Steiner's use of terms like etheric forces and astral forces are part and parcel of biodynamic agriculture. Biodynamic farmers recognize there are forces that influence biological systems other than gravity, chemistry, and physics.
Dr. Andrew Lorand provides an insightful glimpse into the conceptual model of biodynamics in his Ph.D. dissertation Biodynamic Agriculture - A Paradigmatic Analysis, published at Pennsylvania State University in 1996.
Lorand uses the paradigm model described by Egon Guba in The Alternative Paradigm Dialog to clarify the essential beliefs that underpin the practices of biodynamics. These beliefs fall into three categories:
1. Beliefs about the nature of reality with regard to agriculture (ontological beliefs);
2. Beliefs about the nature of the relationship between the practitioner and agriculture (epistemological beliefs); and,
3. Beliefs about how the practitioner should go about working with agriculture (methodological beliefs). >>>more
LINKS
Tracing the Evolution of Organic/Sustainable Agriculture:
A Selected and Annotated Bibliography
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
International Sustainable Agriculture Resources
Biodynamic Agricultural Australia
USA ~ Biodynamic Farming & Compost Preparation
Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association, Oregon U.S.A.
Europe ~ Agriculture and the environment
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