Biodynamic cultivation is not only about the plant being cultivated,
but about the entire ecosystem that the plant inhabits. Essentially,
it involves growing crops in a closed loop system, where there are no
additives from external sources. Picture a boundary drawn around a tea
plantation - nothing outside of that boundary, no soil, no fertilizers,
nothing at all, gets added within the boundaries. That way, the soil
maintains its natural qualities and the tea ends up growing as nature
intended.
Actually, biodynamic farming has been around far longer
than organic farming, but it's just not a tag word that has been
commonly used until we all started realizing that the synthetic
pesticides and fertilizers have been harming us. Rudolf Steiner, an
Australian philosopher, laid out the framework for biodynamic farming
in the 1920's, out of concern of the types of farming methods that were
emerging from commercial farms. It's actually a problem that is
affecting our planet in various ways. For example, let's take paper
production, or lumber production. Naturally, trees would grow in an
area and die in the same place and perhaps be struck by lightning and
eventually return to the earth to nourish smaller plants and other
trees... That's the natural cycle. But what's we're doing now is
cutting down trees and moving them to other places; they then live out
their usefulness as paper or furniture and finally biodegrade at a
landfill thousands of miles away from where they started. So the
nutrients they would have contributed to the soil in their natural home
are no longer replenishing the soil. What happens, then, to the trees
that we have left alone to grow there? they're not getting the
nutrients they need, and cannot survive.
This is the problem that
biodynamic farming is trying to solve. Keep everything where it was
and the cycle of nature will continue. Start shfting things around,
and there's bound to be all kinds of trouble.
Steiner's approach
was a bit more spiritual, contending that as human beings, we had lost
touch with nature - we were not following what we were naturally meant
to do. The end result, however, is the same - that a farm is an
organism like any other, and if you keep drawing away from it, soon
there will be nothing left.
So truly, the best type of farming is biodynamic, and our aspiration is to bring you some divine teas from fair trade biodynamic farms around the globe. For a small business like ours to be able to bring you our own brand of biodynamic fair trade tea is truly a trading revolution.
Venk is a Master of Architecture (M.Arch) candidate in Canada and is currently researching sustainable design methods for existing architecture. Through research of sustainability, venk was introduced to the concepts of fair trade, biodynamic agriculture, and other spokes on the wheel of global sustainability. Wabiblo was created to promote and support fair, sustainable, and socially conscious trade in Canada and the US. A percentage of the proceeds from Wabiblo are contributed to S.O.S. Children's Villages Canada, while the rest goes to support various personal research activities in fair trade and sustainability.
