Biodynamic Farming
Beyond Organic
If you support the tenets of organic agriculture, a healthy planet, and high-quality products, then you should definitely know about biodynamic farming because it encompasses all of these things. Also called regenerative farming, biodynamic farming is an agricultural philosophy that was established back in the 1920’s in Germany by a sustainable agriculturalist named Rudolf Steiner. Later, the name Demeter was given to the cooperative that positioned these principles into set standards in order for farmers to market their goods (much like people do today with the USDA Organic symbol you often see on products).
Today the Demeter Association is the oldest ecological certification organization that permits farms to use its “biodynamic” label on their products after passing several inspections to ensure that the principles are indeed being implemented by the farm:
“The basic concept of Biodynamic agriculture is that the farm should be viewed as a self-sufficient, integrated whole. A living organism. Indeed, even the word "organic" comes from this biodynamic ideal. To create a farm as a closed system, solutions for that farm's vitality- fertility, soil health, disease and pest control- must arise from the farm itself and not be imported from the outside. This self-reliance provides living proof of the concept of regeneration.”
I could do a deep-dive into the details of how they define all the things a farm needs to do in order to call itself biodynamic (feel free to read all you like on their site here), but to keep it short, the basic idea is that everything the farm does, from irrigation to fertilizers to machinery to harvesting (and everything else), must be done in a way where the farm enhances its environment to sustain itself indefinitely. It is the biodiversity of the farm, organized in such a way so that the waste of one part of the farm becomes the energy for another, where this then results in an increase in the farm’s capacity for self-renewal and ultimately makes the farm sustainable.
So if this is not your first time on our site, you can see why we chose to follow these principles for our own farm. The focus of all our efforts is based on the concept that to design and create a skincare product that is vibrant, potent, and, we believe, with a special affinity to the skin, you need to have ingredients that are pure, wholesome, and fresh. Biodynamic farming provides the principles not only for the highest quality plants possible, but also in a way that enhances the environment, rather than detracting from it.
By using ingredients that come from agriculture to create skincare products, there is an inherent responsibility towards these raw materials. Agricultural land occupies 50 percent of the earth’s habitable surface, about 41 percent of U.S. land. In the U.S., food production contributes to roughly 9-15% of total greenhouse gas emissions (depending on who you ask). But the real irony is that in order to decrease the contribution that agriculture has to climate change, the answer is agriculture itself. Put simply: better, sustainable agriculture.
While we continue to grow and develop our farm we will do so according to Demeter’s Farm Standard which outlines and details all the different methods that should be used so that we can eventually apply for the Biodynamic certification ourselves. Once we do, you can bet that you’ll be seeing their symbol on our bottles!
xo,
Carolina
Sources:
• https://www.demeter-usa.org/about-demeter/demeter-history.asp
• https://www.demeter-usa.org/learn-more/environmental-message.asp
• What is Biodynamics? Rudolf Steiner (with Introduction by Hugh J. Courtney), 2005