THE DEVELOPMENT OF BIODYNAMIC AGRICULTURE - A. VON KEYSERLINGK

Dettagli

From the privileged observatory of his venerable age, Count Adalbert von Keyserlingk, who died on 23 October 1993, indulges in memories, especially those of the first days in which the impulses of Rudolf Steiner's agriculture course, held at the house of the Count's family on the Koberwitz estate near Breslau (Wroclaw) in Silesia, were starting to spread. His mind goes to the many pioneers who sowed the seeds of this century's new agriculture, despite all the obstacles. A farmer and doctor, he recalls the many efforts he himself had made on the Sasterhausen estate in Silesia to examine Rudolf Steiner's suggestions in his experiments and put them into practice. In his biography everything originates from a double motive - to develop the medical impulse that arose from the source of anthroposophy and to be able to bear its fruits in the field of plant selection or, to use his favorite term, plant transformation. This is, without a doubt, what makes the book still relevant today. Many people worked hard in those early days to achieve a personal, spiritual relationship with cultivated plants; in external terms by doing experiments, often original, and in internal terms by means of meditation. Following Rudolf Steiner's indications, they also tried to select cultivars from wild plants. Many of these attempts may have remained at a germinal level, but is it right to think that we can continue without first considering them? Just as taking note of evolutionary aspects in the overall work is an integral part of biodynamic agriculture, so the ideas or volitional impulses of those involved in the evolutionary process must be correctly known and appreciated to give this agricultural approach its continuity. in the spirit.