One Man, One Cow, One Planet -- Save the World with Peter Proctor

Imagine the Earth as an apple. Cut the Earth into four quarters. One part is covered by land, the rest by water. Cut the land in half.

One of these halves is covered with mountains, deserts, or ice. Cut this last piece into quarters. Three of these are rocky, wet, hot, infertile, or covered with roads and cities. Only one-thirty-second of the apple remains.

The peel of this section represents the topsoil that must feed the world. Modern agriculture is war. Defoliants, herbicides, insecticides, fertilizers, fungicides, and pesticides. At the end of World War II, the military-industrial complex needed new markets for its surplus chemicals. the agricultural-industrial complex was born.

We've taken the chemicals so adept at annihilating the enemy and turned them against nature and ourselves. Toxic oceans, toxic water, toxic air, and toxic food are the result. From the chemical deserts of factory farms to our inner lives, our world as a place of nature is unrecognizable. Here we've got earthworms.

The unpaid servants. Oh, look at that. Wow. He has a fascination for worms.

Well, each one of those has got a name, you know. He knows more about soil than almost anyone on this planet. His favorite animal is the cow. This is cow dung that's been in here for about, oh, probably four months, five months now.

He loves to stir cow dung in a bucket. A gardener from New Zealand and a bucket of cow dung. Could this simple recipe be a way to save the world? Peter Proctor is the father of modern biodynamics, an arcane form of agriculture that was begun early last century.

For six decades, Peter's been farming, building gardens, and advising farmers all over the world. In the last 15 years, he has visited India 25 times. What are we going to take with us? The packing is the next thing, isn't it?

So what do you reckon? Peter and his life partner, Rachel Pomeroy, a botanist and astronomer, are now leaving their home permanently and moving to India. Do I really want to go to India? No, no, no.

I request you, please. Oh, Cootie, I don't really... Look, you're a nice person, I'd like to work with you, but no, I don't think I'll come. I request you, I really request you, you must come.

Anyway, eventually I said yes. I got a picture of how possible all this was. I mean, the size of the country just blew me away and the numbers of people and the traffic. But I could see underneath there was this connection to the land and this was when I heard the goddess of prosperity is, lives in Kowloon, and that on every cow resides 40 million gods.

40 million gods? Yes, every hair, sir, that represents a god. For Peter Proctor, there are no half measures. He is almost 80.

He has a glass eye and boundless energy. He is hard of hearing, but for him, the earth sings. Peter sees India as the completion of his life's work. He believes biodynamic agriculture may be the last chance this planet has.

Most of us are far removed from the fields where our food is grown. Separating us from food, our primary source of life, is a vast globalized distribution system controlled by multinational corporations. Monsanto is a company which has monopolized seed, almost have monopolized seed and its only objective is that every farmer in the world whosoever buy seed buy from Monsanto and in last 10 years I would say that more than 25,000 farmers have committed suicide because their cost of production has increased and most of the seeds which they are buying are failing them and most of the seeds are from Monsanto because it's mostly the BT cotton seeds, the maize seeds, and the wheat seeds, which Monsanto has come up with, it's those seeds, hybrid seeds, which are failing in the farmer's field. The fight against corporate control of our food is far-reaching.

It's the fight for food sovereignty. When corporations dictate what farmers must grow, they are controlling what all of us eat. The outcome of the battle for agricultural control in India may dictate the future of the earth. Peter Proctor is a new type of hero.

Rather than battling the problem, he simply lives the solution. Ignoring the machinations of the multinationals, Peter keeps his hands in the soil. After 15 years of travel in India, he has seen a network of biodynamic farms fan out across the country. He believes a revolution is happening, one farmer at a time.

Sarvdaman Patel is one of those farmers. Sarvdaman completed his education in the United States, gaining a Master's of Agronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My first experience in organic farming, without thinking, I just did it. Two acres of elephant yam.

It was a very good success. So I tried it with bananas. It was a miserable failure. We lost money.

So I gave up again. I said, I can't do organic. I don't know anything about it. I left it.

Went back to my chemical farming. What had really happened was the soil was becoming dead. It was just an anchor for the plants. It was not a living soil.

The whole day I was there, Barnes and Nobles, it was a big store. I was looking at the agriculture section, and suddenly my eyes went into the organic section. Sat down and read the books from morning till about 10 until about five o'clock in the evening. And that's the real beginning of understanding what is organic farming.

That's probably the best organic farm in the world. That's a big statement, and probably other farms just equally as good. But the ones I have never seen a farm better than this, I would say completely, in all facets really. And we look at this wheat we're looking at the moment over here, it's just brilliant. standing up so straight and tall just like a human being you know it's a real connection to the ego of the human being and the south of life developed at the beginning of last century by the anthroposophist rudolph steiner a biodynamic farm is totally self-sufficient self-contained and dedicated to producing good food for the benefit of mankind so what makes a perfect farm India is one of the richest countries in the world, not because of the gold, not because of the diamonds, not because of the rubies, but because of the biomass.

What we can grow on our soils, because of the wonderful temperature, wonderful climate, the moisture, the warmth, the compost that's being made from this biomass. Sarvedaman provides a public service to his local town, collecting leaves that would normally be burnt, while he persuades the local council to become biodynamic. The transformation of dead material into life-giving compost is the cornerstone of biodynamics. On top of this, they would be putting the cow dung, and some water, and some rock phosphate, and some seaweed, and it becomes in situ, almost doing it as it goes. grass, animal manures, food and garden scraps, practically anything natural can be composted.

Twenty-five percent of the garbage in our landfills and incinerators could have been composted. compost is the only way to increase the humus content of soil without humus soil is lifeless the cow venerated in India is central to biodynamic farming with its four stomachs it is a unique animal of digestion cow dung forms the basis of many biodynamic preparations The cow pat pit, known as CPP, is one way of processing cow dung. Detractors call it muck and magic, especially as the recipe contains mystical preparations. So you're getting the processes, not actually quantities of, but getting the processes of those essential elements that can work in a very natural way. Bringing the effect of the planets into your land, you certainly get very good crops which generally do not have trace element deficiencies.

A lot of people just don't like touching dung, they think ooh horrible stuff but actually in fact once you start using it, once you've used it, you know you've moved the stuff and actually worked with it, it's got a lovely feeling. And actually it's very interesting that the Indian farmers know that it has the sterile qualities that if you have a cut they'll put fresh cow dung on the cut and that actually into it sort of sterilize it and you don't get any infections which is unusual but it's very hard to believe that the camera can't smell it rest assured it's quite real son does point out that the only things that don't come from heaven you might say phosphorus and potassium all the other elements actually are there in the atmosphere which can be brought into your soil through good farming techniques mixing air into the what we do do is you are farming the soil you're also farming the air but if you have nothing you know if you have dead soil nothing can The eight preparations that arouse so much suspicion are very simple.

They are mixes of herbs, like yarrow and chamomile, and minerals, like silica and calcium, all connected with planetary forces. There are some people that when they hear about biodynamics they think it's strange. And the reason why they think it's strange is that whole voodoo doodoo thing that I talked about before. It's strange because of the preparations.

That's the big thing. that you have these eight preparations that Steiner came up with, and in my wildest dreams, it would be very difficult for me, well, maybe in my wildest dreams I could probably come up with something like this, but they're so different, these preparations, that people actually take cow manure, and they pack it in a female cow's horn, and they bury these horns in the ground for six months, and they do it when the moon's in a certain phase, and they usually do it around the fall equinox dig them up around the spring equinox and that cow manure that looked green and yellow and smelled like cow dung is now basically this sweet smelling humus or compost here we go when they dig it up perfect absolutely perfect there we go beautiful stuff i mean most people think this is an organ attack they wouldn't guess that it's an organ of digestion the cow again from rudolf stein he says the horn is to do with digestion and the vapors from the stomach go through here through the sinuses up into the stump this stump with holes and then returns back through the stump through the sinuses back in the stomach going up and down all the time and these vapors of digestion improve the digestion of the cow. Now a cow, you know, has got four stomachs.

It's got something like 15 meters of intestine. Just imagine, 15 meters of it. And it's all enhanced by the vapor returning from the horn. The horn is an important part of the health of a cow.

But the cow is all the time ruminating, chewing, and that digestion gas is going up and going back again, up and back. So this has a holding effect. So when we put the dung in there, you still have the digestion process going on. And so the digestion actually helps break down that cow dung, that fresh cow dung, into the material I showed you, that preparation that we sprinkle around.

Once matured, the cow horn compost is stirred into water for an hour, or mixed using a flow form. Stirring by hand or flow form creates a vortex, increasing the capacity of water to support life. At the moment the movement is reversed, chaos is created. Out of chaos, a new vortex is formed.

The water is imbued with one of the basic principles of plant life. Order arising out of chaos. The mixed preparations are then sprayed in homeopathic concentrations. Microorganisms in the soil are activated.

Plants deepen their roots. Soil structure improved and worms mysteriously get busy. The water is thoroughly permeated by the life force imbued in the biodynamic preparation. The whole mass of water has become dynamic.

Every droplet of water now carries this life. Even the way preparations are sprayed matters. The spiral from seed heads and shells to cyclones and galaxies forms the core of nature. Biodynamics is as much concerned with the soil as with the plant itself.

In biodynamics, the soil is everything. My plowman, he's been working for me for the last 25 years. I asked him, how was the land when you started? He said, it was quite hard, like a rock.

I said, why? He said, because you were adding a lot of chemicals at that time. I said, how is it now? He said, in the last six years we have put in compost and a lot of other things doing green manure and it's become like cotton and even further it's become like butter yeah it's become like butter it's so smooth and so easy to cultivate and i've got some corns in my feet and they used to pain me a lot when i used to do it 25 years ago but as of today they don't hurt me i asked him how come there are so He said, there's such a big population of earthworms now, and as I cultivate, they come and eat the earthworms, they eat the insects and all that.

From the beginning of time, we've recognized the influence of heavenly bodies on plants, weather and the tides. Using an astronomical planting and sowing calendar, biodynamics is a rediscovery of those ancient rhythms. The small caterpillar, green caterpillar is eating these pots and it has gone down at the moment and they'll come up in the morning, all night they'll be trying to eat it. In the morning the birds will come and eat it.

This is what it does. Oh, look what it does, that worm. We can have the insects tomorrow, I think, maybe I'll try to open it if I have. And the birds eat those insects?

Yes. If we do some herbal sprays, we can control it to a large extent. But I feel that birds will do the job to our own. They'll do it for a couple of days and finish it off.

Natural farmers work with nature as a whole to understand that insect, plant, and soil are intimately connected. Healthy soil makes healthy plants, makes healthy people. Good biodynamic pest control includes companion planting, natural insecticides, liquid manures, and quartz preparation. As a last resort, some biodynamic farmers are exploring the use of biological deterrents.

The corporate model requires a farmer to grow food to meet market demands. But Sarvdaman follows the biodynamic model, feeding his family and workers first. Sarvedaman then sells or trades his surplus to his local community through a roadside store. Some surplus is sold in local towns, but this store is so successful that it takes almost all his produce.

His farm operates on a human scale, self-sustaining, ethical, and biologically diverse. How is it? Great. Yeah?

Very sweet. Sarvdaman's farm represents India's localized economies. It is a blueprint for a future when fossil fuels are scarce, when the world's most valuable commodity will be the knowledge of how to farm and the wisdom of how to grow food that is more than just stuff to fill our stomachs. But even on this perfect farm, the reality of the corporate agenda that underpins chemical farming is a breath away.

Whatever the politics, Peter is resolute in his commitment to be the change he wants to see. And this can happen all over India. It can happen all over parts of the United States, and parts of Australia, New Zealand, and so on, all over the world. You've got to get your hands dirty.

You've got to get your feet tied. His dream is a world returned to a matrix of interlocking small farms, farms, each supplying and caring for a widening circle of community. On this journey, at the invitation of Anil Bokar, a government-employed technical officer in Maharashtra, Peter visits ten farms a day. His schedule would be punishing for a man half his age, but Peter is unflagging in his enthusiasm and his commitment.

I worked in agriculture in the city associated with those scientists brought a green revolution with the invasion of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. As a matter of fact, the farmers got high yields, but there was a deterioration in the ecology not only that but the soil and the cost of production went very high which led to the not satisfaction to the farmers and they were away they're fed up with the farming and we happen to meet with many farmers and we start off thinking other ways and the other way that is from chemical farming to the organic farming. This banana. Okay, right.

Good. Good. Very nice. Peter's legacy is spread across India.

Wherever he goes, newly minted biodynamic farmers are eager for his knowledge and blessing. That helps the culture, you know. That's all you need, that much. As our Agricultural University does not do any research on organic farming so we started interacting with the farmers and we were very much happy and astonished as they could solve their own problems and they were working in a group.

When I first came here people said, oh this man is crazy, you don't believe what that man properly says do you, it was the reports I get, but now that's changing and we're having a lot of help now from the government. Now here we have formed the organic farmers group in each and every village and we have federated them into a federation at the district level. So in this way this organization set up is from the village level to the district level and the farmers come here, sit there and solve their own problems and share their own experiences. In this way this organic agriculture movement is taking place. farmers are now also knowing what are the benefits regarding the ecosystem balance and all that.

So this has taken a lot of efforts and now it is spreading very fast in this region. We had three young men came up and said, excuse me sir, we haven't met you but we wanted to meet you, we are working in Maharashtra. And you know sir, we have made, this year our farmers made 10,000 biodynamic compost heaps. I said, what?

10,000 biodynamic compost heaps? They said yes to it. We took near about 1,000 training programs in the Maharashtra with the help of NGOs, with the help of farmers, with the help of State Department, and fantastic results we got. At present, near about 4 lakh hectares area is under organic farming. last year we made near about 20,000 BD composed in Maharashtra and to that in our district it was a phenomenal thing to get use of this agro-biowaste and the farmers they did not purchase anything from outside now they are reducing this input cost and now our farmer from chemical farming they went to organic farming and from organic farming that heading towards biodynamic agriculture.

We saw that irrespective of their education, irrespective of their living standards, our farmers have become very much innovative. They are interacting, they are working like scientists. We are taking these farmers to other farmers and they are believing so that these farmers have become a very good extension messengers. Their self-image has increased.

Their communication skills have improved. Our relationship has very nicely increased, and that has placed our image, self-image, very high in the society. When you tell people about it, and I tell you about it, you tell your friends, and they tell their friends, and they tell their friends, and go some miles. And this is quite exciting.

Thousands of farmers throughout India are turning to biodynamics. It is calculated there are more than 200,000 biodynamic compost heaps in India. put another layer of dry on, then dry your slurry, then this one. Just look at the way the water's spread from the wrist down on the hand. I mean, there's real love in that, you know.

One of the problems is that they are short of water, and so they've got to maximise where the water's put. And he has got his own computer. He has made these templates at his house. Yeah, yeah.

That's good. Yeah, very good. Oh, this is so nice to see this, so nice to see this. It was a very slow beginning, very slow, but as I said, this little thing we had in Bangalore in November 2005 showed that this thing is changing.

And if it accelerates at this speed in the next ten years, I would say, conservatively, almost the whole of India could be more biodynamic. For millennia, organic farming was practiced in India without any marked decline in soil The Green Revolution, which began in the mid-60s, was supposed to alleviate world hunger. I'm Jaspal Singh. I'm an organic farmer from Punjab, and my father was a very zealous and outgoing farmer, and he was one of the pioneers of Green Revolution, so-called Green Revolution, which has been proven as a killer now, producing lots and lots of bumper crops and doing everything right.

They give layers and layers of chemicals still. chemicals still, till date now. And our soils are sick and waterlogged. The production is going down. The pest infestation is more.

Personally, I was worried, but I didn't have any alternative. Viewed holistically, the Green Revolution was a failure. Chemical agriculture destroyed India's natural abundance, farming communities and soil. High-yielding plant varieties turned out to use far more water, growing significantly less crop per drop.

Today, in much of India, the rivers have long since dried up, and the only water is hundreds of meters down. Chemical? Chemical. Urea.

Ah, urea. Yeah, yeah. Urea, fertilizer. Ah, fertilizer.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, heavy, heavy doses. Heavy doses? Heavy doses giving them.

Heavy doses. Kills all the humans. Yeah. Gradually that chemical started to erode the quality of the soil, the structure of the soil and it over reduces the bacteria and the bacteria needed bodily nourishment so they started tearing into the carbon, the organic carbon, the humus.

So the humus actually gradually got less and less and less. Soil from being that high was that high. That high is what the humus was, it just lost it. It's like shingle, really.

It's got no life in it at all. You see how it goes to dust, and you get dust storms? What does it smell like? It smells chemical.

The International Water Management Institute in Gujarat says India's green revolution is living on borrowed water and borrowed time. That effect has happened all over India. The chemical has destroyed this 30, 40 years of wonderful, what took 5,000 years to build up. It's an absolute, absolute tragedy.

But what isn't a tragedy is there is an answer. In reality, the Green Revolution has forced farmers to give up their balanced, mixed cropping to provide chemically sustained, monocropped surpluses. While this enabled India's integration into the global economy, in essence, it is the farmers who have ended up serving transnational corporate interests. The Sardar Patel Farm covers 150 acres on the outskirts of the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat.

The farm grows around 30 different varieties of fruit, herbs, spices, and vegetables. The farm also operates a biodynamic plant nursery, specializing in rare palms and species for semi-arid conditions. So when we look at the sustainability of biodynamic agriculture and we compare it to conventional agriculture, we're looking at soil quality, we're looking at crop performance, we're looking at financial profitability and environmental quality. So when we look at those four big indicators and we compare them between the two systems, what we find is soil quality is better on the biodynamic farms.

And part of the reason is because the biodynamic farmers are adding compost to their soil, so they have better physical properties, things like structure, less compaction, they have more topsoil, their biological activity, meaning their organic matter's higher, they have greater microbial activity, more earthworms. When you look at the chemistry of the soils and you compare them to the conventional, The results there have been probably a little bit mixed, where sometimes it favors the biodynamic, sometimes it favors the conventional. But the chemistry is the easiest thing to change, because you can always add natural or synthetic chemicals. The hardest thing to change are the physical and the biological properties, and in those instances or in these studies, the biodynamic farms are always better.

Well, this is good CPP, it's got a nice texture, and it's also got a very good humus forming. And the humus content, you can tell by actually spreading it out like that, you see. And it's very smooth between your fingers, and you can actually smooth it like that. And it's got no smell of cow dung at all.

It's all ready to go. It's just full of the right sort of bacteria, fungi, and all the right micronutrients in the soil. the soil. All the biological life is in the soil. It's encapsulated with that.

And this is what a lot of people are isolating and selling as bio-fertilizers. They're making so much money, but the farmer can make his own. A lot of people follow you, oh this is Sardapuri Farm, organic, give me some of it, come to my place, pass by my place. When we look at profitability, usually the profits are the same or even higher with biodynamics.

And part of the reason is because with biodynamics you get a premium, just like you do with organic food. And that premium can range anywhere from, oh, 10 to 100 percent more. Studies that look at environmental quality, comparing biodynamic with conventional systems, or comparing even organic with conventional systems, the biodynamic and organic come out on top. You have less erosion, you have less potential for groundwater contamination, less movement of nitrate down the soil profile that can get into the groundwater.

Obviously you don't have the synthetic pesticides that you're putting on so there won't be the residues in the crop and there won't be those going into the groundwater either or running off the soil. So when you look at environmental quality, that's higher on the biodynamic and the organic of farms versus the conventional farms. This is for the powder that we are making. And then the final thing would be if you look at energy efficiency, I haven't seen studies looking at biodynamic with conventional farms, but there have been a number of studies that have compared organic with conventional farms, and the biodynamic farms would be very similar to the organic.

And in those studies, the organic farms are always more energy efficient. These are about a kilo or three tons. In fact, we have two 20 tons. Daily we are picking about three tons and something.

When we talk about sustainability, it's basically a utopian idea where a farm has to be building the soil. Wow, that's good. conserving the natural resource base, producing adequate yields of high quality, making a profit, being socially responsible so that you're paying your workers a good wage, you're giving them retirement benefits, you're giving them medical benefits, and you're also environmentally sound. So you're not polluting the groundwater, you're not eroding the soil, you're energy efficient. It's all those things.

When someone says, oh, my farm is sustainable, it doesn't matter what the system is, you measure all those indicators. And when studies like that have been done, biodynamic and organic farms come out better. They tend to be more sustainable than conventional farms. And so in the long run, they're much more sustainable.

The problems that we are experiencing that are causing concerns about conventional agriculture are the following. We see areas where we have groundwater contamination. Because we now have contamination of pesticides and nitrates in groundwater, people drink that water. They're now concerned about our agricultural systems.

We have erosion. That's a problem with a number of conventional agricultural systems. We also have farm worker safety, farmers being exposed to pesticides, that's a question. Energy is a big question.

Some microorganisms can actually fix nitrogen by themselves or in association with plants and they can take that nitrogen from the atmosphere and give it to the plants. Well now we can take it, but it costs us energy to do it. We use fossil fuels. That is a big concern as we go into the future because the cost of energy is so expensive.

In this particular one farm in South India where they've got a salt problem, there's just no biomass there at all, there's no humus in the soil. There's no absorption of the rain, the rain just runs straight off. There's no water in the underground and they're still having to irrigate because they've got so much chemical, they've been putting so much chemical on the land since the Green revolution to neutralize it and to grow the crops they've over irrigated they've taken all the sweet water and all the left with salty water and so they're irrigating with salt water so they've got a white crush down the whole of the land you know we are actually in a pretty bad situation probably i talk more about this and perhaps the biodynamic part is actually the water how we've got to have water to go on living we can't drink salty water because it makes you thirsty i have seen the farmer debts has increased just because of chemical farming with the high cost of seed other thing he has to go for higher input that is the they recommend go for higher fertilizers higher dose of pesticides no doubt my farmer got higher yields but he forgot that with these higher yields higher debts are increasing just because of higher cost of input a lot of other problems such as health problems very much health hazards to young children's coming progeny was very much affected then we started thinking this is nothing but the result of chemical farming which we are seeing and this came from the farmers themselves as the failure and true cost of chemical agriculture escalates thousands of small farmers are turning to biodynamics well Well, the water problem is actually finding water, the waste water, which is mainly water from the washing of the dishes, is just running away.

And it's fairly pure because they don't use soap. They use wood ashes for cleaning the dishes. So you've got a wood ash combination there, which is fine. And that can be saved and used regularly on the compost.

That would be enough to keep all this compost, we saw, moist. I have seen that the farmer growing his farm with biodynamics, the water holding capacity has increased of the soil, soil porosity has increased. Not only that, during heavy floods and heavy rainfall, very good vertical penetration is there and it has helped to increase our water table. The other good thing is that people are reporting that they are using up to 50% less water in biodynamic agriculture.

So if you imagine a country like India where they use a lot of water in agriculture, using half of that, that's a huge saving. Organic farming sustains in broad, but only I can say that organic farming and biodynamic farmers can sustain when there are no rains, no water irrigation facilities. From the public perception of the West, India is an undeveloped country. Small family farms dominate the rural sector.

Sustainable agriculture, farming that is not controlled by corporate agendas, is the key to a harmonious society. And there's nothing undeveloped about that. During chemical farming, just due to high debts, our farmer was away from his family. Always he was worried about his family prosperity and he was not happy, his family members were not happy, committing a lot of suicides and not going for education but this organic revolution has brought up a very great social change.

Now whole family is again united, they are respecting their elders, living together, working in the farm together even they are involving their women they are thinking of organic they are always eating organic and they are working for organic harmony has developed then our farmers are interacting all the youths have come together they are helping one another they They are solving their problems. Even if this person is doing the BD compost, everybody will come and help him. Then they will complete this work, then they will go to another field. Then they'll go to Sunil's field, then Anil's field.

And they are collectively they are doing. And whatever the difficulties they are facing, they are overcoming these difficulties. Electricity, just they will have this idea. Labor problem, they will do that themselves.

Then if there is a shortage of cow dung, one farmer will give to another farmer. Like this, they are helping and solving their problems. Here is the problem they are solving. Sitting together, working together.

That is a great change which we are bringing in Rural Prosperity. Now, we are giving them another message besides agriculture. That is health, that is about education, family planning. We are bringing all these things to bring an integrated, holistic Rural Prosperity.

As far as the children and their family situation is concerned, I would like to tell you, we have an open house event every year, you know, where the farmers and their families come and it's like an interactive event. One of the ladies came up to speak and she said, you know, I'm so happy to be doing organic and biodynamic farming. I'm happier, the situation, my family situation is happier. I can now afford to send my children to school.

And not only that, I can afford a little bit extra for them. She says, when we were doing chemical farming, we were spending so much more. We were constantly in debt. I could have never dreamt of providing these things to my children that I am doing now.

These are the words of that lady who, I mean, it brought tears into our eyes when she said something like this. Because we hear talk of the economics of separate farming systems, but this is how it affects them. These are the beans which are washed, then these are kept in the trays and this weighs 500 grams. People in the market have realized the importance of organic food as a part of health and so they are ready to pay a higher price.

As the quality is good, keeping quality is good, smell is good, taste is good, and this is making a clear-cut difference from a conventional farm to the organic farming. Then black sesame again. Probably known as peanuts in our country. Peanuts?

The Patel farm is so productive, They process a range of fruits and legumes that are sold across India. A sustainable farm is a regenerative, living organism that maintains its productivity and usefulness to society indefinitely. It is resource-conserving, socially supportive, commercially competent, and environmentally sound. What is at heart wrong with chemical agriculture is that there's no room for the spirit to enter or to be thought about.

It's all what you put on is what you get back. But here, with biodynamic agriculture, you have to have a sort of gap between what you put on and what you receive. Okay, pass. Matter is never without spirit, and spirit is never without matter.

In such a way that we say we will to do all material things in the light of the spirit, and we will so to seek that light of the spirit, that it evokes warmth for us. that warmth for us in our practical activities so you feel you're doing the right thing not that you're going to get a good place in heaven but you're doing it because you want to help people this cap was my my father's peter what's that the cap the cap was your father's gosh the sardar patel farm operates a very successful fresh organic box scheme throughout the city In a globalized market, local agriculture that returns independence to farmers and enables direct contact between growers and consumers is a revolution. In stark contrast to every other crowded corner of India, an almost empty toll road now rings the country. Too expensive for marginal farmers to use, this massive infrastructure is funded by international aid and loans.

It is designed to support industrial agriculture, enabling India to participate in a globalized free trade market. At the Mahatma Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, we are reminded of the essence of Gandhi's message, food sovereignty, the right of all people to define their own food and agriculture free of international market forces. In 1930, Gandhi led the legendary Salt March. It was an act of civil disobedience against British law that made it illegal to manufacture, collect, possess or trade in salt.

We also want a similar independence where we have our own freedom to grow whatever we want and to eat whatever we want. We don't want any Monsanto or Syngenta to tell us what seed we grow, what crop we should harvest, and what food we eat. In India, more than 60% of the Indian population are dependent on farming and they are mainly the small and marginal farmers with maximum of one hectare of land. And if they will be taken to the court for infringement of patent and will be fined for about one million or two million of rupees, you can imagine what will happen.

The major campaign in India which is going on is promoting and encouraging the alternative forms of agriculture, whether you call it organic farming, you can call it biodynamic farming, you can call it natural farming, these are basically non-toxic, non-chemical forms of farming where farmers are practicing a farming which doesn't require any use of chemicals. But the second advantage is that they are not required to use Monsanto seeds, they are not required to use any hybrid seeds in these sort of alternative farmers farming. Once you have the seed in your hand, the indigenous, they see varieties of seeds, they can plant it year after year, they are exchanging with the neighboring farmers, they can sell it as seeds, while if they grow Monsanto seeds, they can't even use it next year. Not only because it has got a patent on it, but this is genetically not allowed.

In several areas in India, the movement is going on to declare their region, their villages, their taluks as no GMO zones. Then there are farmer unions who are putting their act together to tell their farmers, tell their cadders not to grow BT cotton, not to buy chemicals. You know if you link organic, biodynamic to the Gandhian philosophy and thinking, I think Gandhi really wanted the villages to be self-sufficient. By building up the knowledge base of farmers, the farmers can really become independent.

They don't need to depend on external resources which means they save money, they don't have to buy costly pesticides or fertilizers and in a way you are teaching them to use their resources to the optimum thereby reducing your dependency on the outside world. And in a way one of the core functions of biodynamic is to close the cycle. The farm should be able to produce what it needs for its soil fertility, etc. So I think there is a direct correlation, and I'm sure Gandhi would be very happy to see the growth of the organic and the biodynamic movement.

The gene revolution is destroying the genetic base of our food supply. The Indian subcontinent once grew 30,000 varieties of rice. Today, there are no more than 15. The new varieties are environmentally unsustainable and nutritionally deficient.

With soils destroyed by green revolution chemistry and irrigation now using two-thirds of all sweet water, a genetic quick fix is being promoted to rescue failing crops and ruined soils. In a rural landscape otherwise devoid of advertising, Monsanto's fluorescent green and orange signs are everywhere. Fifteen years of internationally guided market reforms have unleashed a second wave of agrochemicals and biotech seeds across India with devastating effect. Biotech seeds cost nearly 400% more than conventional seeds. farmers often find their yield is 30% less.

The quality of genetically modified cotton is markedly lower. It has no resistance to India's primary cotton pest, the pink bull worm. The balance of nature is so disrupted, other pests proliferate, and pesticide use increases. Seed dealers get huge commissions from suppliers.

Farmers are often forced to take the genetically modified seeds as part of a credit package. A 2006 report found that 60% of Indian farmers using genetically modified seeds could not recover their investment, let alone feed their families. late Wednesday in his first trip to the country he was greeted in despair 150,000 Indian farmers have killed themselves since 1993 some drink their pesticides while others burn hang or drown themselves in March 2006 Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush signed an agreement that could bring Indian agriculture under the control of multinational corporations. Under the guise of patent rights and seed ownership, this agreement will impose a new kind of serfdom on the rural people of India.

General thousands of farmers have committed suicide. And yet, you know, we arrived here with these corporates like AES and Cogentrix and Unipal. All of them have such dubious records. It's really unbelievable.

And yet, if you see the way the CEOs and the corporates are falling over him. And I have to mention this. With man only a step ahead of his enemy, new weapons are being devised in the research laboratories. Thousands of new compounds and control techniques are being developed and put through countless tests.

Is there a potential hazard to man and animals? It takes years of research until a chemical meets rigid requirements of safety as well as effectiveness. Safety. Safety to man, to animals, to crops, to wildlife, to fish, to beneficial insects, to our total environment.

Nature does not wear a rubber suit and a gas mask. Neither do most Indian farmers. And all the protection in the world becomes irrelevant when the food we eat is poisoned. This film, more than half a century old, is strikingly modern in its belief in the need to subjugate nature to ensure human survival.

Combined with the profit motive, it is the driving force behind genetic modification. The further we move away from the growing of our food, the more we lose our understanding of what food actually is. Really, you are what you eat. That saying is quite true.

And if we're eating, well, really, deception, isn't it? We're growing food, but it's not from the real, true qualities of the earth. And if you eat deception, you'll be deceptive towards others. If you eat untruth, you'll be untruthful. and we're putting our children at such a disadvantage starting them off in life eating food that isn't true food.

How can they grow into true moral people if the food is not supporting that? That's how I feel about it. Connect the agribusiness dots. Chemical farming demands expensive, escalating inputs.

Promised benefits do not materialize. Families fall into the type of poverty that requires international aid, often in the form of the very grains and legumes they once grew successfully. Viewed cynically, it could be seen as the perfect business model. Build a market by creating a need that did not exist, and then expand that market until it wraps an entire nation in dependency.

World hunger is not caused by food scarcity. It is caused by trade liberalization, industrial agriculture, genetic engineering, and military dominance. They made a sound, a sort of tone, and they knew this of course, and so they knew how to build the right sort of forms, you know, to get that sound. It's quite fascinating, but it happens all over, wherever I go, I just look for it.

Biarray stands for organic and biodynamic farming. Biarray stands for transparency, stands for five years purchase guarantee to farmers, stands for long-term partnership long-term commitment we don't just treat our farmers as suppliers or as just sources of production and one of the main tasks that we have here is to be able to make the soils of the farmers healthy so that they can farm their lands for a long period of time It's interesting this time, once you've been doing it for half an hour, the viscosity of the water changes. It forms a vortex very quickly. In fact, some of our students have done a sort of count of the number of revolutions at the beginning of the stirring to get the vortex.

And then count the number of revolutions at the end of the hour, and they find it's about half the number. It's quite incredible, yeah. The water becomes kind of viscous, you know, it's amazing. We cannot sell the goods as organic or in conversion till the farmer is 12 months free from chemicals.

OK, your turn. So what we are actually doing is that we are buying the first-year goods from the farmers, paying them 10% over the market price and selling those goods as conventional goods. And also, if there is a crop failure, for instance, Our field staff can assess the situation and the association is well within their mandate to consider remuneration or just a grant to the farmer just to make up his crop loss. At the organizational level, the people that we are connected with, the whole biarray chain, really stands for a high degree of moral, social, ethical, and environment responsibility, which we are trying to fulfill in our day-to-day work with the farmers, with the land, with the working force that we have.

Corporations are not necessarily the problem. The issue is the underlying philosophy of unlimited growth in a finite world. Coming to the issue of globalization without social responsibility, I think it would create very serious problems for farmers and the Biore model, I would say, is a kind of an alternative globalization where we are linking farmers to the consumers by the textile chain. Free trade and fair trade, I think there is a big difference. the fair trade initiatives like BioRay, what we are really trying to do is that we are bringing the consumer and the whole production chain, the whole manner in which the product is made and the farmers, somehow we are linking them and bringing them closer.

And in a way, we are also satisfying the consumer that look, by buying this product or by using this product, are supporting communities or you're supporting groups of farmers either to change or to improve their livelihood or you're in a way even helping to elevate poverty in a sense. Free trade, I mean one has no idea, you know, what you're buying, where it's coming from, whether it's being made in China or India, what are the conditions in which it is being grown or manufactured some people are getting too much benefits too many benefits out of the opening up of markets and there are people who are working very hard at a very basic level who are somehow being left out they are being ignored they are not being able to get the actual benefits of globalization we here are trying to bring things back to the roots trying to bring things back benefits back to the people who are actually doing major part of the producing of the product if you look at textiles there has been a huge movement in the world you know there is the clean clothes campaign it's I think a more social cleanup that has been talked about all along the textile chain there are no children working the people who are working have regulated working hours, good working conditions, healthy environment in which they can work.

There was an embargo on carpets being exported from India because there were children working in the carpet industries. And, you know, when the consumers started saying, so sorry, we are not interested in buying the carpets. So there was a change in the carpet industry. And apparently today, I'm told that the carpet industry has cleaned up its act.

BioRay is a different kind of corporation. Their philosophy is to match economic interest with ethical responsibility along the entire textile chain. There are people, there are millions of people who are buying the BioRay garments. And when they are doing that indirectly, you know, the benefits are reaching us.

I would not say that people are not aware. People are aware. And it is thanks to those people that a lot of the work is possible here also. You know, if you talk about moral responsibility and profit, I think or I feel that they are not incompatible.

I think they are compatible, very much compatible. And in a small way, you know, we are, I mean, Biarray is in a small way showing that it's possible that one can strengthen the other person and in the bargain also get something for yourself. We are reaching out to farmers through a team of young people who are working with farmers who we call extension officers or field extensionists. And capacity building of these field extension is a very, very critical part of the work that we are doing.

In biodynamics, the flow of energy is reversed. It is a profound local alternative to the corporate model of globalization that is incapable of addressing the human need we all share for self-realization and self-determination. I think the biodynamic method is a very, very holistic thinking where you look at the soil you look at the cosmic influences you look at composting you look at so many aspects considering all these aspects i think it's it's a very very holistic approach that we are we are at least trying to bring about i think peter has made a huge difference to the the biodynamic movement because out of his commitment out of his love out of his his zeal his zest his understanding I think he has infused a lot of people who have come in contact with him a lot of practitioners a lot of farmers in terms of spreading the the knowledge the method the understanding because you You know, it's no longer in the books, it's no longer at the Gosiyanam, for instance.

It's now down here, very much localized to Indian conditions and for Indian farmers to adapt. You know, biodynamics, I would say, for us is so special. It is so close to our heart. it is sometimes I feel it is you know it's too simple to be true that we actually get gain strength from the quality of the food which actually reflected our thinking and our thoughts and that's the very very important thing Steiner points out that the food actually helps you make moral decisions or moral thoughts. It's not just stuff to fill your stomach, it actually gives you a real quality of thought and you realise that this is what the world is needing, it really is needing.

And you see our leaders of countries, it's horrible what's happened and the things that have come to the surface and you know jolly well it's because they're not thinking properly. And so Steiner points out how important to have spiritual thoughts. It doesn't mean to say that you're holier than I and so on, but it's actually a world thought, a heart thought respect and concern for other human beings i think this relates to a respect for the land it comes out of that to people sitting on the other side who are watching this i would like to say that you really really can't imagine what it is to be on the other side in this side of the the production chain and when you promote something like this you cannot imagine how many lives you are reaching out to it's not bad that's quite nice yeah yeah that's good well done yeah very nice actually done you cannot imagine what areas of their living of their well-being you will touch when you promote something like this am i underestimating the power of a company like Monsanto.

I'm not underestimating the power of the individual farmer in the earth, the small farmer and they don't want to buy stuff. That reduces the cost. At present they are getting for 75 rupees. They want to grow their own, make their own fertilizers, they want to make their own land and they can do that if they know the technology of able to make their own compost, making their own preparation five hundred they can do it themselves they can do it collectively and there's a groundswell of power there that you can't stop this is how it should be it will break down much more quickly yeah that smells nice I'm sure that Gandhi would have loved the city of agriculture I'm sure he would have thought this is you know nonviolent agriculture he used to talk about but I'm sure that he could see this is something of the Indian farmer can help themselves Peter began his Indian Odyssey in the city of Indore in Madhya Pradesh.

Back then, the university supported his work. The professors of soil and agriculture that joined him in the beginning have now retired. I've met so many wonderful, wonderful Indian farmers. I've met wonderful people.

You've met some of them. There's a lot more that you haven't met. And they're so compassionate, so appreciative, actually, of this knowledge. I believe that India could be always the hope of the world and that's basically why I've thrown my hat in the ring in India because I realise this is one country where biodynamic agriculture could take on and the Indian folk are the sort of kind of born teachers and they can move out and they can go into, right throughout India, they can go to neighbouring countries where a white face isn't appreciated, but the Indian face would be, and they can tell other countries what biodynamic agriculture is all about.

I just feel there's a huge, huge possibility there. Biodynamic. In house, bico-dynamic. Bico means wife.

You must have a dynamic wife. Dynamic. Dynamic. So this to me is the power of the individual farmer. revolution, if you like.

It's not a green revolution, it's a grass-roots revolution. And it can happen because all the raw materials are there in place. Gandhi came here in 35. At the end of our journey, we return to Peter's first cowpat pit at the University of Indore. pit at the University of Indore.

As most of the departments once run by the professors are now funded and controlled by agribusiness, Peter's work with individual farmers becomes increasingly vital. It was so hard. I didn't realize that it was so hard. They had to dig the holes with a It was bright yellow.

I thought, oh, my God, we can't make 500 here. It's not going to work, you know. This bright man here said, you know why, Peter? We didn't put any water on it.

We didn't shelter it. We didn't shade it. We'll do it again. And so we did the following October, and it turned out perfectly.

I wonder what can bring an end to this whole structure that's really holding us back with the agribusiness, we call it, where it's all within a big financial economic framework and that determines how we act. The simple answer, I suppose, is that for people to take the courage to say I'm going to work with what I know is right. This is what Rudolf Steiner was absolutely adamant about. We are responsible for our own actions.

We have to think in the right way. Unless we have the right food, we can't think properly. So this is basically what I'm talking about. This is probably, my speech is speeding up, and this is because I'm quite excited about this.

But the interesting thing to me is that I can see it can happen. We can get it to happen. It's just, I mean, here there's so many wonderful, wonderful people. I mean, you've met them already. and there's more and more around that you'll meet tomorrow and the next day it's on.

They are all here. More production than chemical. One man is doing 500 skips a rank. Many customers.

I'm just absolutely amazed, I really am, at the amount of work that here and in Kaljooran has actually happened. To me, that is the big thing in this district, the area of Maharashtra generally. What would it take for the world to change? You know, I believe that if you are the world, or if I am the world, I have to somehow change the way I work or change the way we work and it's only by these small changes that one can make a difference I mean of course the work that we are doing is very small if you come back to the scale of the farmers but I'm convinced that it's only small initiatives that can make a difference and I firmly believe that you know I am the world or you are the world and if you change the world changes.

Some might think, well, it's so easy. Please wake up, people. Please wake up. It's just so simple.

It's no big deal. You don't have to be a Ph.D. or all sorts of things. You can just be a Kiwi farmer and do it. Peter and Rachel now live at the Bhaktivedanta Academy for Sustainable Integrated Living near Mysore on the banks of the Kovari River.

Peter still travels by train throughout India and will continue teaching for the remainder of his days.