Biodynamic farm management relies on close attention to the interrelation of the farm’s parts (i.e. fertility management, water management, pest control, etc.), rather than solely isolation and concentrating on its individual parts.

In practice this entails managing a farm in such a way that inputs, which otherwise would need to be imported from off the farm, arise from within the living dynamics of the farm itself.

At some point in time there was a divergence from this fundamental thought underlying organic farming.  While many in the “organic farming movement” continued to be guided by this principle, and still do to this day, there also arose an organic agriculture that, out of necessity, had to be guided by the pressures of supply and demand economics.  The original idea of organic agriculture requires a cooperation with living systems inherent to this planet.  Fertility, for example, is based on the recycling of organic material that is generated on the farm.  In one way or another raw organic materials are fed to an army of soil life that use it as food.  The organisms die and in return provide nutrition to growing crops.

The concept of “time” that these systems operate in is biological in nature.  It is rhythmic, based on seasons, weather patterns, sunrise and sunset.  It is this biological time that dictates how quickly a farm can reach a level of fine tuned efficiency and maximum productivity.

The network of biology can be intensified and moved along to a degree, but the system can not be pushed beyond its means without bringing in help in the form of imported materials.

Bringing in materials reintroduces some of the same set of problems conventional agriculture presents, namely dependence on the earth’s natural resource to transport, mine and refine a myriad of materials that are shipped all over the world.  By its nature, this puts pressure on natural resources and the natural systems from where these materials are mined or harvested.

For there to be a supply of product based on the production of a network of “farm organisms” there has to be foresight in developing the right farming systems to generate the supply.  A farm that has been severely neglected can take up to a decade to be revived.  There is an intense biological regeneration that has to occur.

When the demand for organic food exploded, the only way to meet this demand was to fortify the existing farm systems with materials imported from outside.  This reality has created a new form of organic farming that has diverged from its roots.

From the start, Biodynamics has also maintained an expansive definition of the farm organism that does not stop at the fence line.

For instance: The farm sits within a general bio-region that influences the farm via local weather patters, animal and insect migration, and geography.  The farm’s bio-region is part of a greater regional bio-system.  In North America, the ebb and flow of the jet stream keeps some regions wet, some dry, some warm, some cool.  Any farmer will tell you that the effect of this on the farm is profound.  The bio-region itself is part of the functioning of the earth as a whole living unit.  The farm is inseparable from the living identity of the earth as a biological system.  Further, the earth is in a clear mathematical and gravitational relationship with the sun and all the planets in the solar system and the solar system itself is an element of the vast expanse of its infinite backdrop.  In such a blue print, the tiniest element of the farm is, in fact, the expression of the widest expanse of the infinite.  Biodynamic farming utilizes observation of celestial activity and a series of preparations to aid in aligning a farming system with the pure rhythm that comes from the widest expanse.  To put all of the above into a nutshell, Biodynamics requires a keen observation of nature itself.  Produce and the related products that result from such an approach has a profound sense of place that is expressed as vitality in the product.