Biodynamic Vs Organic In Farming, Agriculture, And Food Production Yield And Resilience

This article explores the distinction between organic and biodynamic agriculture. Most people are more familiar with the term " organic ", when practicable to food or farming, as this term has entered the mainstream. The term " biodynamic " is less familiar, although it is most familiar in the area of wine. Both of these systems of farming aim to nurture sustainability by reducing the use of synthetic, chemical inputs which can potentially be harmful to the environment and to human health. However, as this article explains below, biodynamic agriculture goes a lot likewise than organics towards achieving this objective.

Both organic and biodynamic have certification systems:

Biodynamic certification is carried out primarily through a single disposal, called Demeter International, an umbrella management that has part organizations in the individual countries where certification is carried out. Through the certification is spring by a single system, biodynamic certification is more standardized globally than organic certification.

Organic certification is run by a variety of different agencies. In most industrialized countries, including the U. S., Canada, the European Union, and Japan, the organic label is defined and regulated by the government. In other countries, organic certification can be carried out by non - profit organizations. Because there are different certifying agencies in different countries, the standards for organic certification differ. However, there are still some basic similarities in common between these different systems.

Biodynamic goes above and beyond organic certification:

The core idea of organic certification boils down to one idea: avoiding the use of synthetic chemical inputs, which can include herbicides, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers like ammonia - or nitrate - based fertilizers. In this respect, organic agriculture is defined more in the negative than the positive sense: organic certification specifies what a farmer cannot do, but does less in terms of specifying good or healthy approaches to agriculture. Because organic certification does not specify much more than some restrictions on what farmers cannot do, there are many different ways of realizing organic farming.

Some organic farms stick to the letter of organic certification, following all the requirements and rules, but while maintaining the same fundamental approach of industrialized agriculture, using mass - production of crops in large monocultures, and applying fertilizers and herbicides or pesticides as one does in modern industrial farming, with the only change being the use of mixtures allowed under the organic certification systems. The gains of this sort of approach, from a sustainability standpoint, are minimal.

Biodynamic agriculture, on the other hand, takes a more holistic approach. In biodynamic agriculture, the farm is viewed as an ecosystem. Biodynamics, like organics, avoids chemical treatments, but goes even farther, promoting decentralization of production, using cover crops, crop rotation, livestock manure, composting, and open pollination combined with seed saving Each of these practices provides benefits in terms of sustainability, both creating a more positive environmental impact, and increasing the resilience of the farming operation.

The effects and yield of biodynamic agriculture vs conventional organic farming:

There are not many studies comparing biodynamic agriculture to organic - certified factory farming. However, there is a lot of research comparing biodynamic farming to conventional ( non - organic ) farming, and this research seems to find a common trend, which is that biodynamic farming results in slightly lower crop yields, but greatly increased soil quality and lessened environmental impact. Furthermore, biodynamic operations tend to be much more resilient to disturbances, such as changing environmental conditions or unusual weather or climate fluctuations. This is likely due to the use of ecological principles such as diversification and use of open - pollination and seed saving. And in the case of biodynamic wine, a specific topic that has been studied more, there is some evidence that the biodynamic practices result in greater quality of the grapes.

In summary:

Biodynamic agriculture goes above and beyond organic agriculture in embracing ecological principles. Biodynamic certification is more standardized than organic certification. Biodynamic farming results in lower crop yields, but greater resilience in the face of changing conditions, and a more positive impact on the environment.

What is Biodynamic Agriculture

Biodynamic unfolding is not one shot about the plant being cultivated, but about the entire ecosystem that the plant inhabits. Essentially, it involves growing crops in a closed loop system, where there are no additives from foreign sources. Picture a boundary strained around a splurge plantation - zot appearance of that boundary, no soil, no fertilizers, zip at all, gets too many within the boundaries. That way, the soil maintains its natural qualities and the at-home ends up growing as nature intended.

Actually, biodynamic farming has been around far longer than organic farming, but it ' s even-handed not a tag tete-a-tete that has been commonly used until we all started deriving that the synthetic pesticides and fertilizers have been harming us. Rudolf Steiner, an Australian philosopher, laid out the framework for biodynamic farming in the 1920 ' s, out of concern of the types of farming methods that were emerging from commercial farms. It ' s actually a problem that is affecting our planet in various ways. For example, let ' s take paper production, or lumber production. Naturally, trees would grow in an area and die in the same place and perhaps be struck by lightning and eventually return to the earth to nourish smaller plants and other trees... That ' s the natural cycle. But what we ' re doing now is cutting down trees and moving them to other places; they then live out their usefulness as paper or furniture and finally biodegrade at a landfill thousands of miles away from where they started. So the nutrients they would have contributed to the soil in their natural home are no longer replenishing the soil. What happens, then, to the trees that we have left alone to grow there? They ' re not getting the nutrients they need, and cannot survive.

This is the problem that biodynamic farming is trying to solve. Keep everything where it was and the cycle of nature will continue. Start shifting things around, and there ' s bound to be all kinds of trouble.

Steiner ' s approach was a bit more spiritual, contending that as human beings, we had lost touch with nature - we were not following what we were naturally meant to do. The end result, however, is the same - that a farm is an organism like any other, and if you keep drawing away from it, soon there will be nothing left.

So truly, the best type of farming is biodynamic. While the majority of food crops around the world are grown in an unsustainable manner, there are some crops such as biodynamic tea [http: / / www. wabiblo. ca / Fair - Trade - Organic - Tea / Green - Tea / Fair - Trade - Biodynamic - Darjeeling - Green - Green - Tea - 50g - p1094. html] that is starting to revolutionize farming and trade practices.