The Farm Individuality

(Draft - Under Construction)

by Phyl Dwyer

At Kona Biodynamic Farm we try to work with the farm as a living entity. Our farm's most important product is the farm itself. We agree whole heartedly with Rudolf Steiner’s postulate regarding the farm individuality. (Now agriculture uses words like sustainability, diversity and ecosystem.)

A farm is a kind of individuality, and you will soon realize that your animals and plants should participate in this as much as possible. Nature is impaired in a certain sense if the farm animals are eliminated and fertilizer is brought in instead of manure being supplied by the animals on the farm. You then step out of what used to be—and should continue to be—a self contained cycle. You must arrange things so that the cycle becomes self-sustaining. You must simply have the right number and kinds of animals on a farm so that you get enough of the right manure.

—Rudolf Steiner

A living alchemical dialog is taking place when a cow eats and digests the vegetation of the farm and communicates back via manure. For instance, perhaps the cow is “telling” the land it needs more of some specific trace mineral. If the farm is helped to be the living being it innately is, it can actually respond and grow stronger, and even different, plants which nourish the cow more. The cow responds by growing healthier, giving healthier milk, birthing healthier calves and producing healthier manure even more related to the farm’s needs.

A farm comes closest to its own essence when it can be concieved of as a kind of independent individuality, a self-contained entity. In reality, every farm ought to aspire to this state of being a self-contained individuality. This state cannot be achieved completely, but it needs to be approached. This means that within our farms, we should attempt to have everything we need for agricultural production, including, of course, the appropriate amount of livestock. From the perspective of an ideal farm, any fertilizers and so forth that are brought in from outside would indeed have to be regarded as remedies for a sickened farm. A healthy farm would be one that could produce everything it needs from within itself.

—Rudolf Steiner

The farm organism is a living being not unlike that of a person. It is just as enigmatic and profound. The entire cosmos is its context and the whole earth its community. It weaves its unique body and beingness from its locale, boundaries and relationships. It has a rhythmic system, a nervous and a metabolic system (among others). All the systems have their individual responsibilities, but are integrated, interrelated and interdependent. The health of the whole organism is a reciprocal of the health of the “parts” or systems. Each system or area of focus has its own identity, needs and contributions to the whole.

Imagining the Farm-Being

It can be a fun and practical exercise imagining what organs and systems of the farm individuality, or farm-being, the various facets of the farm might be.

Facet of Farm Parts or constituents	Farm-Being's System Organs
Cosmos Sun, moon, planets, zodiac, stars, meteors	Cosmos Su
Climate Winds, clouds, precipitation	Climate Wi
Soil Topsoil, subsoils, minerals, humus, microorganisms (bacteria and fungi), earthworms	Containment skin, diaphragm
Biomass & Fertility Compost yard, manure & stable bedding, garden debri, kitchen slop, orchard wastes, etc, mulches, sheet composts	Metabolic/digestive Stomach, guts
Covercrops Nitrogen fixing legumes, biomass crops, trap crops, beneficials , remediation crops, sods, fallow	Covercrops Ni
Pastures fields & paddocks, grains, hay, grass mixes, protein legumes, herbs, shrubs, borders	Rhythmic/respiratory Breathes
Gardens root, leaf, flower, fruit & herb crops, beneficials, inter-cropping, companion planting, rotation cropping	Gardens ro
Trees orchards, wood lands, shade trees, hedges & borders	Trees or
Insects bees, beneficials, pests	Insects be
Domestic Animals cows, horses, sheep, goats, poultry, rabbits, dogs, cats	Nervous Sentience
Wildlife grazers & browsers, preditors, birds, reptiles, amphibians	Nervous/ Sentience
Human Beings family, friends and "foes:" farmers and workers, volunteers, students, customers, patrons, officials, visitors	Human Beings fa
Diseases plant, animal & human: stress, injury, fungal, bacterial, viral, parasitic, congental, aging	Diseases pla
Buildingshomes, shops, barns, shedsInfrastructure fencing, pens & gates, roads, paths, water storage, piping & irrigation, Energyheating, fuel, electricityHeavy Equipmentcars, trucks, tractors, etc ToolsGardens, carpentry, automotive, welding, stone, arbor

 

nervous, rhythmic, metabolic

circulatory, nervous, glandular, respiratory, digestive, sensory, skeletal, muscular, cardiovasular, lymphatic, immune, excetory, uninary endocrine, subcutenous, cellular, reproductive, personality, psyche, soul, spirit,

 

 

What Defines a Farm?
Size, food, production, animals

What makes a farm biodynamic?

Farmer as Archetype
It can be an amazing thing trying to live up to the role of a farmer, an archetype. It helps if there are lots of little children around singing songs such as “The Farmer In the Dell,” “Old McDonald Had a Farm” and “The Farmer Takes a Wife.” Of course it takes more than a song or two, or bib overalls or a straw hat or chewing on a blade of grass to make a farmer . . . or does it? Maybe all it takes is the desire . . . and lots of hard work! In pre-industrial times we probably all used to be farmers of one sort or another.

Priest, artist, scientist, economist, social activist, mystic, environmentalist, lover

hope, levity, life/death

Industrial Farmers
Industrial farmers of the “developed world” over the last several decades often became something different than what many of us might have as a loosely held image of a farmer. The image of the farmers in the children’s songs is definitely not that of an industrial farmer. Trying to sum up the industrial farmers as a collective into some sort of image is a rather daunting challenge. The foundation of their efforts are noble, to provide society with food. Unfortunately the industrial agricultural methods deployed, such as the green revolution, have often had many unanticipated and unfortunate results, even dire ecological ones.

But we’re talking archetypes