Hi Mr. Hilliard,
Thank you for visiting our website and emailing us. If you are interested in Biodynamic Farming, please visit our website often for information and updates. A good source also is the principle biodynamic certification agency (www.demeter-usa.org). You can also learn about renewable energy or community supported agriculture on our site. We produce a lot of our own energy on our farm and the movement behind community supported agriculture (or what some people call coop farming) is growing by leaps and bounds.
In response to your concerns, we can assure you that all of our farm animals are raised with care and compassion. Many biodynamic farmers use some but not all of the biodynamic methods. They often choose which components work best for their land. Having been farmers all of our lives, we have spent many years testing and trying different methods of growing. We have come to use a variety of growing techniques that include composting, limited irrigation, organic livestock raising and following the rhythms of the seasons. We also have become independent of fossil fuels and commodified growing and input methods. This is a way of reducing both our carbon footprint as well as our dependence on non-local inputs.
Common inputs we have eliminated or never used in our growing include blood meal, bone meal, and ammonium nitrate. (Blood meal and bone meal are commodities made from blood and bones generated from slaughter houses. Ammonium nitrate is made from natural gas a.k.a. dead dinosaurs). Some or all of those animal products are used in most all vegetable farming methods in North America. We are very proud that we don’t use them in our farming.
Again we appreciate your email and your interest in our farm!
Sincerely,
Michael and Arika Menzies
Braeside Farms
Note: This post is written in response to an email we received from Mr. Hilliard in which he objected to the use of animal-based products in biodynamic farming methods. We wanted to explain how we apply certain principles but not others, specifically the use of slaughterhouse byproducts as fertilizer.
