Is biodynamic farming the sustainable agriculture of the future?

Biodynamic agricultural is an innovative and potentially sustainable method of farming developed in the 1920’s by Dr Rudolph Steiner. It was developed in order to tackle the growing problem of soil erosion that was occurring at the time. The practice incorporates the idea that agriculture is holistic: a collective spiritual, ethical and ecological approach to the production of our food. Biodynamic farming disallows the use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers and instead opt to use something very unique: preparations. These preparations are made up of totally natural substances which are usually sourced from the farm itself. The application of these preparations to the farm follows a strict calendar that incorporates growing seasons, and lunar and cosmic cycles. The objects of this work was to define sustainability and assess how sustainable biodynamic farming is in relation to the definition. To investigate the effects of preparations on soil quality, and assess whether it would be feasible for biodynamic farming to be the sustainable agricultural practice of the future. The research found that in terms of sustainability biodynamic agriculture is one of the most sustainable agricultural practices in modern day farming. It has no adverse effects on the environment, produces no waste, as everything that would typically be deemed as waste, is recycled to other parts of the farm. Generally, most biodynamic farms are run as a community effort and tend to run alongside residential schemes that aim to support the needs of individuals with a wide range of learning difficulties and mental health issues. Running a farm in this manner incorporates many factors of social sustainability. The only issue found with biodynamic agriculture’s overall sustainability is its economic standing. Most biodynamic farms run on a charity basis to fund their therapeutic residential schemes, in doing so there is then a potential to lose their grants and donation funding from third party providers. Thereby, if funding is cut, this can then be of a massive loss to the farm as it may no longer be able to support its residents or run at a profit. This study found that preparations 500-508 do have beneficial effects on the soil and its quality. The main findings were that compost treated with biodynamic preparations contained 10% less Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 ), had a higher ratio of dehydrongenase enzyme to CO 2 production and had increased microbiological movement. Additionally it was also found that the treated compostswere typically of a higher average temperature and increased organic matter content. All of these findings are factors which enable decomposition to occur faster, which produces a greater quality of soil. If soil is of good quality then the quality of crops grown in the soil will also be better. The final section of this research focuses on how we can sustainably meet our worlds food demand. This study found that we still need to rely on conventional agriculture to meet our global food demand. This is because currently, our alternative options are just not sustainable enough yet and need more time to develop. overall, biodynamic farming could be a feasible option for the future. However in order for this to happen, additional measures must be taken in order to make biodynamic agriculture more sustainable. Moreover, more information surrounding the practice needs to be made public, as people will not have faith in a practice that is known to be secretive.