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In modern agriculture, with the race on for so-called viability and for ever-more intensive productivity, the use of chemicals is constantly increasing. However, the use of chemical weedkillers, insecticides, acaricidal pesticides and systemic compounds (which penetrate into the plant's circulatory system) completely destroys the balance of the soil and the environment. When you kill insects, you also wipe out their natural predators. When you use weedkillers, you destroy all the flora, good and bad alike. The roots remain near the surface of the soil, making the plant more susceptible to drought. The water table becomes polluted. Wine growers and fruit growers are reduced to treating their crops dressed up as astronauts in order to protect themselves. |
Rural farmers are constantly approached by salesmen from the huge multinational companies who hype their new, ever more powerful and more effective products. This makes me think of those ads for washing powders that wash your clothes even whiter than white… You might say I'm exaggerating, but not really.
Fortunately, there are alternative methods for working the land. An alternative approach to growing the plant and an alternative way of treating crops.
In 1924, the Austrian philosopher and scientist, Rudolph Steiner, during a week of lectures, set out the fundamental guidelines which would enable suffering agriculture to restore its health. These lectures can be found in his book "The Spiritual Foundations of Biodynamic Methods".
