A revitalisation of European farming and the promise of the biodynamic worldview

Julia Wright

doi:10.1186/s40538-022-00317-z

A revitalisation of European farming and the promise of the biodynamic worldview

Julia Wright

Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

51 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Abstract: In 2020 and amidst the upsurge in discourse around de-industrialisation, a consortium of sixteen indigenous leaders and organisations released a briefing statement that urged change amongst modern regenerative farming movements. Called ‘Whitewashed Hope’, the critique encouraged these movements to go deeper than simply taking indigenous practices out of context, but rather to encompass the worldviews they represent and in doing so to enable the cultural and relational changes needed for humanity’s collective healing. This paper takes a critical analysis approach to address the question of whether the critique of regenerative agriculture holds true for biodynamic agriculture in particular. This is explored using the hypothesis that there is no evidence of a synergistic relationship between the biodynamic worldview and the indigenous worldview as characterised in the document Whitewashed Hope. Drawing from the works of Rudolf Steiner as well as from other biodynamic texts, the paper uncovers synergies that exist between biodynamic and indigenous worldviews and explores the implications for regenerative farming systems. The aim of this paper is to instigate further debate and enquiry around the underexplored topic of how our worldviews impact our farming systems and of ways to develop an expanded worldview for more revitalised farming in the European context. Graphical Abstract:

Original language	English
Article number	64
Number of pages	9
Journal	Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture
Volume	9
Issue number	1
Early online date	14 Sept 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1186/s40538-022-00317-z
Publication status	Published - Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the
original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativeco
mmons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Keywords

Review
The scientific bases of biodynamic agriculture
Biodynamic
Indigenous
Regenerative
Farming
Europe
Agroecology
Organic
Steiner
Worldview

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Cite this

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abstract = "Abstract: In 2020 and amidst the upsurge in discourse around de-industrialisation, a consortium of sixteen indigenous leaders and organisations released a briefing statement that urged change amongst modern regenerative farming movements. Called {\textquoteleft}Whitewashed Hope{\textquoteright}, the critique encouraged these movements to go deeper than simply taking indigenous practices out of context, but rather to encompass the worldviews they represent and in doing so to enable the cultural and relational changes needed for humanity{\textquoteright}s collective healing. This paper takes a critical analysis approach to address the question of whether the critique of regenerative agriculture holds true for biodynamic agriculture in particular. This is explored using the hypothesis that there is no evidence of a synergistic relationship between the biodynamic worldview and the indigenous worldview as characterised in the document Whitewashed Hope. Drawing from the works of Rudolf Steiner as well as from other biodynamic texts, the paper uncovers synergies that exist between biodynamic and indigenous worldviews and explores the implications for regenerative farming systems. The aim of this paper is to instigate further debate and enquiry around the underexplored topic of how our worldviews impact our farming systems and of ways to develop an expanded worldview for more revitalised farming in the European context. Graphical Abstract:",

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A revitalisation of European farming and the promise of the biodynamic worldview

Abstract

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Keywords

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