One health and 30 years of BD experience
Posted: 21 Feb 2023, 17:15
My Experience from 30 years’ Responsibility for Running a mixed biodynamic Farm in Switzerland
Ueli Hurter
One Health means the interdependence of health and resilience of humans, animals, plants and soils in a particular social environment and biotope. This approach, which has been adopted to work on by the Medical Section and the Agriculture Section, is in its early stages. However, the term itself is controversial, because people do not understand it as common health or shared health, but rather as standardized health, which is to be introduced via the WHO in a dictatorial manner. At the Goetheanum an information evening on One Health took place and in this context I tried to convey my practical experiences.
In the course of 30 years, during which we ran the farm carefully, the health of soils, plants and animals on the farm have improved and become continually more stable. By far the most of the essential steps that led to this were of indirect nature. In other words, success came about not through a strategy of fighting disease, but rather through a strategy of acting out of a holistic view of the farm and thus it corresponded to a One Health approach. Thereby, the view always starts from the whole – from the agricultural organism – right through to the particular. The cultures, the animals, the soils are viewed and treated as organs of the farm organism. Correspondingly, diseases and illnesses are disturbances between one organ and the organism, or else between different organs. The therapy can consist in the adaptation of a particular organ so that it fits into the organism better. Or else, farm processes that connect the organs are changed so that the organs are interconnected in a different way.
One example of such a change within an organ is the selection of the variety in plant cultivation. Thus, with the conventional wheat variety ‘Arina’ we repeatedly had 50% failures because of brown rust, partly too because of stinking bunt. With the change-over to ‘Aszita’ and later to ‘Pizza’, wheat varieties from Peter Kunz’s biodynamic grain breeding, all the diseases have disappeared and the stability of the yield on a middle level was guaranteed. With other cultures as well the selection of the variety became a decisive step for success – right through to propagating our own seed with beetroot.
Another example is the health, robustness and resilience of beef and dairy cows and calves. Each attempt to increase the milk yield destabilised the situation in the cowshed. In other words, small mistakes or inattentiveness led straight away to diarrhoea and navel inflammations with the calves, to parasites with the heifers and bullocks or to ups and downs in the milk quality with the cows. A first step towards stability was to consistently only take calves from our own stock: every heifer of your own is better than a supposedly good dairy cow from another farm, simply because it comes from the farm, that is, from the common health biotope, from the “One Health World” of the farm. A further step came about through the inner attitude “the farm does the breeding, not I”; which meant the animals with their health or disharmony were telling me who belonged to the farm organism and who did not. That meant a catharsis, because, in the beginning, I picked out the wrong animals and I needed to acquire new eyes. Together with other measures the animal health has stabilised massively through a strategy of taking account of and adapting to the conditions of the farm organism to the greatest extent possible.
As an example of an adaptation of the process the way that manure is dealt can be described. In the first year deep bedding manure from the new pen was spread on the field, where it caused a genuine disaster with thistles. A phase of compost rows on the edges of the fields followed, tiresome machine work, with high losses. Finally, a place with foundations was established, the manure could be turned as needed, was always covered up, received the biodynamic preparations two or three times and the rotting process was only carried out up to the fungus stage. At the same time, the manure spreading in the crop rotation was changed; instead of fertilising the nutrient-hungry cultures directly, the manure was spread solely to build up the soil. Usually the main spreading took place in the second year of clover grass growing. With adaptation of the process of managing the farm manure, the soil became quiet and stable, major problems with weeds became rare, the soil was compliant and able to accept each culture.
The biodynamic farm that does completely without buying in mineral fertilisers, agrochemicals and, to the greatest possible extent, antibiotics needs to create its own capacity to promote health itself. It is the farm’s third genuine performance factor, alongside the annual yield and the long-term building up of the soil fertility. Experience has taught me that this goal is only achieved through a roundabout approach for salutogenesis, coming from the whole or the periphery, which does not aim at the particular disease, but thanks to observing, thinking and acting in a holistic way, takes in the whole farm organism. Part of this on a biodynamic farm is the application of spray preparations and compost preparations. In terms of farm management, I would reckon the saving made by good health on our mixed farm at 5–10% of the gross proceeds, that is, 30,000 to 50,000 Swiss Francs per year. The produce that leaves the farm carries this health element in it. Food is produced, which has not become unhealthy because it has been protected by chemicals, but which is healthy thanks to the healthy production process in the farm organism. This health is ‘one health’ or shared and common health of all creatures, which, through the work of the human being as composer, are ordered and shaped as a farm organism which is an organism of a higher order. If this shaping and ordering succeeds, then the farm is not just not unhealthy, but is healthy in a productive way, a hotspot of health. With the food this health is passed on to the social organism, to people who feed themselves with it
Ueli Hurter
One Health means the interdependence of health and resilience of humans, animals, plants and soils in a particular social environment and biotope. This approach, which has been adopted to work on by the Medical Section and the Agriculture Section, is in its early stages. However, the term itself is controversial, because people do not understand it as common health or shared health, but rather as standardized health, which is to be introduced via the WHO in a dictatorial manner. At the Goetheanum an information evening on One Health took place and in this context I tried to convey my practical experiences.
In the course of 30 years, during which we ran the farm carefully, the health of soils, plants and animals on the farm have improved and become continually more stable. By far the most of the essential steps that led to this were of indirect nature. In other words, success came about not through a strategy of fighting disease, but rather through a strategy of acting out of a holistic view of the farm and thus it corresponded to a One Health approach. Thereby, the view always starts from the whole – from the agricultural organism – right through to the particular. The cultures, the animals, the soils are viewed and treated as organs of the farm organism. Correspondingly, diseases and illnesses are disturbances between one organ and the organism, or else between different organs. The therapy can consist in the adaptation of a particular organ so that it fits into the organism better. Or else, farm processes that connect the organs are changed so that the organs are interconnected in a different way.
One example of such a change within an organ is the selection of the variety in plant cultivation. Thus, with the conventional wheat variety ‘Arina’ we repeatedly had 50% failures because of brown rust, partly too because of stinking bunt. With the change-over to ‘Aszita’ and later to ‘Pizza’, wheat varieties from Peter Kunz’s biodynamic grain breeding, all the diseases have disappeared and the stability of the yield on a middle level was guaranteed. With other cultures as well the selection of the variety became a decisive step for success – right through to propagating our own seed with beetroot.
Another example is the health, robustness and resilience of beef and dairy cows and calves. Each attempt to increase the milk yield destabilised the situation in the cowshed. In other words, small mistakes or inattentiveness led straight away to diarrhoea and navel inflammations with the calves, to parasites with the heifers and bullocks or to ups and downs in the milk quality with the cows. A first step towards stability was to consistently only take calves from our own stock: every heifer of your own is better than a supposedly good dairy cow from another farm, simply because it comes from the farm, that is, from the common health biotope, from the “One Health World” of the farm. A further step came about through the inner attitude “the farm does the breeding, not I”; which meant the animals with their health or disharmony were telling me who belonged to the farm organism and who did not. That meant a catharsis, because, in the beginning, I picked out the wrong animals and I needed to acquire new eyes. Together with other measures the animal health has stabilised massively through a strategy of taking account of and adapting to the conditions of the farm organism to the greatest extent possible.
As an example of an adaptation of the process the way that manure is dealt can be described. In the first year deep bedding manure from the new pen was spread on the field, where it caused a genuine disaster with thistles. A phase of compost rows on the edges of the fields followed, tiresome machine work, with high losses. Finally, a place with foundations was established, the manure could be turned as needed, was always covered up, received the biodynamic preparations two or three times and the rotting process was only carried out up to the fungus stage. At the same time, the manure spreading in the crop rotation was changed; instead of fertilising the nutrient-hungry cultures directly, the manure was spread solely to build up the soil. Usually the main spreading took place in the second year of clover grass growing. With adaptation of the process of managing the farm manure, the soil became quiet and stable, major problems with weeds became rare, the soil was compliant and able to accept each culture.
The biodynamic farm that does completely without buying in mineral fertilisers, agrochemicals and, to the greatest possible extent, antibiotics needs to create its own capacity to promote health itself. It is the farm’s third genuine performance factor, alongside the annual yield and the long-term building up of the soil fertility. Experience has taught me that this goal is only achieved through a roundabout approach for salutogenesis, coming from the whole or the periphery, which does not aim at the particular disease, but thanks to observing, thinking and acting in a holistic way, takes in the whole farm organism. Part of this on a biodynamic farm is the application of spray preparations and compost preparations. In terms of farm management, I would reckon the saving made by good health on our mixed farm at 5–10% of the gross proceeds, that is, 30,000 to 50,000 Swiss Francs per year. The produce that leaves the farm carries this health element in it. Food is produced, which has not become unhealthy because it has been protected by chemicals, but which is healthy thanks to the healthy production process in the farm organism. This health is ‘one health’ or shared and common health of all creatures, which, through the work of the human being as composer, are ordered and shaped as a farm organism which is an organism of a higher order. If this shaping and ordering succeeds, then the farm is not just not unhealthy, but is healthy in a productive way, a hotspot of health. With the food this health is passed on to the social organism, to people who feed themselves with it