Biodynamic Preparations: A Dilemma To Use

Biodynamics is an agricultural management system based on degradation of food produced through farming practices that increasingly relied on additions of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides. Biodynamics were thought to be one of the first alternative approaches to modern agriculture as one of three alternative or ‘‘organic’’ agricultural methodologies. Biodynamic preparations influences organic life on earth through cosmic and terrestrial forces that would stimulate vitalizing and harmonizing processes in the soil. Some preparations are made by packing cow manure or silica, respectively, into cow horns and burying them for a number of months before use. It was believed that cow horns, by virtue of their shape, functioned as antennae for receiving and focusing cosmic forces, transferring them to the materials inside. The contents are then diluted with an unspecified amount of water to create a homeopathic solution and applied to soil or crops to influenced root or leaf growth. Other compounds are extracts of various plants packed into either the skulls or organs of animals or peat or manure. The chemical elements contained in these preparations were carriers (it was thought) of terrestrial and cosmic forces and would impart these forces to crops and thus to the humans that consume them. In general organically grown crops and biodynamic preparations have been uniformly ineffective. Compared with organically managed systems, additions of biodynamic preparations did not affect yields of cover crops, forage grasses, lentil Lens culinaris, rice, sunflower and wheat. A similar lack of efficacy can be found in wheat seedling root and shoot growth, lettuce and soybeans. A rice and cabbage found superior in cost-effectiveness and consumer preference than organic treatments with additional biodynamic preparations. Organically raised mangoes had significantly greater phenolics, flavonoids, and antioxidant activity than those from biodynamic fields. So, biodynamic preparations to be of questionable scientific quality and efficacy.