Economists and bankers like to think of agriculture as agribusiness, where the farm is simply a machine, inputs go in one end, the farm processes these as efficiently as possible and the resultant outputs are sold.

Such a simple concept, but there is a flaw.  Machines run down and, in fact,  the tax office allows for depreciation to replace them, whereas a farm is expected to go on  for many generations. This is one of the main differences between biodynamic and chemical farming.

In biodynamic farming, the life force of all aspects of the farm and the whole  farm itself are of paramount importance, and all efforts are taken to maintain and improve upon  it.

This is achieved by remineralizing the soil with rock dusts if needed, enhancing farm biodiversity and  rotational grazing or crop rotation which lays the ground work for the special Biodynamic preps to breathe life into the soil and the farm.

Chemical farming is different in that it attempts to maximize production as cost- effectively as possible using synthetic fertilizers and poisons on monocultures. Initially, as the green revolution has shown, chemical farming has produced cheap plentiful food and is seen as a boon to human existence.

What is the long term cost of this way of farming?

What has been the effect of excessive soluble chemicals on the soil life, soil structure, organic matter our health?

Is it sustainable or is it simply sucking the life from our soil?

Is food from dead soil helping us to enliven as humans or is it making us sick?

What do you think?