From the greenhouse to the sandwich (or your dinner table), we believe in enjoying the process as much as the rewards it brings.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Getting down and dirty
James, my biodynamic comrade in [f]arms, loves to get his hands dirty for a 'food' cause. The exhilaration of grabbing a handful of rich soil, toiling it, planting the seedlings, and literally watching it grow is a miracle unto itself.
From the greenhouse to the sandwich (or your dinner table), we believe in enjoying the process as much as the rewards it brings.
From the greenhouse to the sandwich (or your dinner table), we believe in enjoying the process as much as the rewards it brings.
In the beginning, there was ...
Towards the end of 2012, James Faber (a local San Francisco merchant and purveyor of fresh deli foods) and I started a biodynamic farm in San Pablo, north of Berkeley, California, one of the top three, politically most liberal cities in the United States. The pictures in this post show our early efforts and the some of the fruits of our labor.
I myself was born and raised in San Francisco and mid-stream, ventured to Vermont, where I still own and operate farms run on the basic principles and tenets of biodynamic farming. My meeting with James was far from coincidental. The instinctive farmer in him, combined with my stock and breed led to a natural partnership. We continually challenge each other in the pursuit of excellence. His contagious energy and passion for fresh, local produce sparked a kinship which is slowly blossoming into a sustainable relationship based on respect for the land and what it will yield in return for not usurping it.
As we bootstrap, our mission and goals are simple: educate and provide folks with the best the earth has to offer.
More shall be revealed to us as we continue down the path of sustainable farming enlightened by timeless spiritual principles. Not surprisingly, our mode of farming works in today's climate of mega-corporations that battle to take over the earth and imbue it with genetically engineered yields.
Perhaps the real battle is not to view the behemoths as the enemy. The challenge is to embrace our founding principles and build alliances which collectively enable us to shine forth.
The path to success is simple: stay true to the earth & teach tried and true agricultural practices which preserve the land for endowment to future generations.
The rest is left to careful, efficient management and educational efforts which provide the fuel that promotes the mission.
James Faber owns and operates DeLassio Cafe in San Francisco. He is an itinerant family man who is well known in the city.
I myself was born and raised in San Francisco and mid-stream, ventured to Vermont, where I still own and operate farms run on the basic principles and tenets of biodynamic farming. My meeting with James was far from coincidental. The instinctive farmer in him, combined with my stock and breed led to a natural partnership. We continually challenge each other in the pursuit of excellence. His contagious energy and passion for fresh, local produce sparked a kinship which is slowly blossoming into a sustainable relationship based on respect for the land and what it will yield in return for not usurping it.
As we bootstrap, our mission and goals are simple: educate and provide folks with the best the earth has to offer.
More shall be revealed to us as we continue down the path of sustainable farming enlightened by timeless spiritual principles. Not surprisingly, our mode of farming works in today's climate of mega-corporations that battle to take over the earth and imbue it with genetically engineered yields.
Perhaps the real battle is not to view the behemoths as the enemy. The challenge is to embrace our founding principles and build alliances which collectively enable us to shine forth.
The path to success is simple: stay true to the earth & teach tried and true agricultural practices which preserve the land for endowment to future generations.
The rest is left to careful, efficient management and educational efforts which provide the fuel that promotes the mission.
James Faber owns and operates DeLassio Cafe in San Francisco. He is an itinerant family man who is well known in the city.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Back to the roots: Rudolf Steiner, founder of biodynamics
"Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), founder of biodynamics, was a highly trained scientist and respected philosopher. Long before many of his contemporaries, Steiner came to the conclusion that western civilization would increasingly bring destruction to itself and the earth if it did not begin to incorporate an objective understanding of the spiritual world and its interrelationship with the physical world. Steiner's spiritual scientific methods and insights have given birth to practical holistic innovations in many fields including education, banking, medicine, psychology, the arts and, not least, agriculture."
In his attempts to find a synthesis between science and mysticism, his philosophical work over the years, which he termed spiritual science, sought to provide a connection between the cognitive path of Western philosophy and the inner and spiritual needs of the human being.
Certain conditions in life may very well make it necessary for a district to be made fruitful in a particular way. Such conditions may be of a moral nature — they may be founded on spiritual and cultural peculiarities. But it is very possible that the fulfillment of these conditions would result in a smaller interest on capital than the investment of the capital in some other undertaking.
As a consequence of the purely capitalistic tendency, the land will then be exploited, not in accordance with these spiritual or cultural points of view (which are not purely capitalistic in character) but in such a way that the resulting interest on capital may equal the interest in other undertakings. And in this way values that may be very necessary to a real civilization are left undeveloped. Under the influence of this purely capitalistic orientation, the estimation of economic values becomes one-sided; it is no longer rooted in the living connection which men must have with nature and with spiritual life, if nature and spiritual life are to give them satisfaction in body and in soul.
Faber-Maeck borrows its ideas and concepts of biodynamics farming from the founding principles defined by Steiner's philosophy. The same ideas which sowed the seeds of early socially-cognizant agriculture are now applied to a growing movement of farming based on biodynamic techniques.
The latter promote spirituality vis-à-vis a sustainable, socially-aware approach that supports successful agriculture despite the agricultural giants who continue to thwart the farmer struggling to eke a sustainable living while respecting and promoting the health of the land for generations to come.
These excerpts are derived from the writings of Steiner himself and other sources on the inter-webs. Here are some links for those who care to delve deeper into the roots of his thinking and association of land, spirituality, and the human social condition as they interrelate:
In his attempts to find a synthesis between science and mysticism, his philosophical work over the years, which he termed spiritual science, sought to provide a connection between the cognitive path of Western philosophy and the inner and spiritual needs of the human being.
Certain conditions in life may very well make it necessary for a district to be made fruitful in a particular way. Such conditions may be of a moral nature — they may be founded on spiritual and cultural peculiarities. But it is very possible that the fulfillment of these conditions would result in a smaller interest on capital than the investment of the capital in some other undertaking.
As a consequence of the purely capitalistic tendency, the land will then be exploited, not in accordance with these spiritual or cultural points of view (which are not purely capitalistic in character) but in such a way that the resulting interest on capital may equal the interest in other undertakings. And in this way values that may be very necessary to a real civilization are left undeveloped. Under the influence of this purely capitalistic orientation, the estimation of economic values becomes one-sided; it is no longer rooted in the living connection which men must have with nature and with spiritual life, if nature and spiritual life are to give them satisfaction in body and in soul.
Faber-Maeck borrows its ideas and concepts of biodynamics farming from the founding principles defined by Steiner's philosophy. The same ideas which sowed the seeds of early socially-cognizant agriculture are now applied to a growing movement of farming based on biodynamic techniques.
The latter promote spirituality vis-à-vis a sustainable, socially-aware approach that supports successful agriculture despite the agricultural giants who continue to thwart the farmer struggling to eke a sustainable living while respecting and promoting the health of the land for generations to come.
These excerpts are derived from the writings of Steiner himself and other sources on the inter-webs. Here are some links for those who care to delve deeper into the roots of his thinking and association of land, spirituality, and the human social condition as they interrelate:
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