Biodynamic Agricultural College, Forest Row, UK

My second visit in England was to Emerson College in Forest Row, about an hour south of London. Emerson College is a school that is based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy. The Waldorf Schools and Biodynamic Farming follow this philosophy. It was a beautiful, mild (and dry !!!!) November day when I visited the campus. Unfortunately, Emerson College is not the lively center of anthropological teaching with 200 students from around the world that it used to be. The college got into financial trouble last year and had to close its door to the regular day-to-day operations and its future is not entirely clear. Only a few full-time and some part time programs now use the facilities and operate independently. Much to the organic/biodynamic agriculture community’s delight, the agricultural training program is one of those programs.

The Biodynamic Agricultural College (BDA college) has its own teaching facility, the Rachel Carson Center. Currently 32 domestic and international students are in either the agriculture or horticulture program. The training is 1.5 years. It starts in September and goes through March in the first year. Then students are placed on a farm (most biodynamic, some organic) for 5 months and then return in September of year 2 for another 23 week college training period until March after which the training is completed. The tuition for this training ($4500-7500 per year) is a little higher than the programs I visited in the United States but also offers different training subjects .

BDA college students mostly live in dorms on campus and are in involved in food preparation and custodial work. There training at the college occurs in six areas of work and study: agriculture, science, arts, economics, skills, and philosophy. They receive a foundation in soils science, plant and animal biology and regular agricultural practices mostly through courses that are taught in partnership with Plumton College/Brighton University. During their biodynamic training, they learn to experience the living formative forces in the agricultural system. They also receive specific training in homeopathy in animals. In addition, students receive training in the arts, movement (eurythmy), and observation of the natural world (plant and animal phenomenology). Students create a portfolio of evidence as a record of progress.

The training is supported by a 5 acre vegetable crop production garden, a flower garden and 2 farms (450 ac and 200 ac) on which meat animals (pigs, sheep, broilers, cattle), dairy cows, grain and pasture are raised. Farms are separate/independent businesses from the college and owned by a community of 550 members. The farm provides the lab/work area for the students. Each afternoon from 2 to 4 students are in the gardens or on the farms to gain practical skills. The village of Forest Row appears very supportive of the organic/biodynamic college. The farms run farm stores where meat, dairy, produce and flowers are sold.

It is unfortunate that Emerson College is not operating for now. That takes away some of the support, appeal and the energy of the program. Another downside in my opinion is the fact that students are not in the college training program for the entire growing season (April-September). It seems students could benefit from some structured time during the summer. Also, while it was good that the farms were independent from the college when Emerson got into financial trouble, I feel that a true BDA College farm would allow students to learn much more about farm management, crop planning and marketing.

A great feature of biodynamic farming is the integration of soils, crops, animals and humans in a whole farm system. While other organic or ecological farming training programs try hard to include some of this integration, it is obvious that it comes much more natural in a specifically biodynamic training. To me it is also wonderful to see the integration of philosophy, arts, movement and crafts (e.g. greenwood craft) into an agricultural training.

During my visit I gave a 2 hour lecture on LBCC’s effort in sustainability and my impressions of the US training programs I visited so far. The students appeared to enjoy the presentation and the discussion. They also gave me some good ideas on how to design a sustainable food systems program at LBCC. I am grateful to

Arjen Huesse, Juergen Schuhmacher, Nir Halfon, and Deborah Watts for setting up my visit and meeting with me.

Organic Research Centre, Elm Farm, Hamstead Marshall, UK

On my first visits in Europe I went to England. My family went with me and we spent a long weekend in London and had a great time visiting the usual tourist attractions such as The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Madam Tousseau, Buckingham Palace etc. On November 2^nd I went to the Organic Research Centre (ORC) near Newbury (West-Central UK). The drive through the countryside was beautiful but driving on the left side on the narrow rural roads was an ... adventure. Green, animal-grazed pastures lined by miles and miles of hedgerows dominate the landscape in this part of the UK.

At ORC I visited with Nic Lampkin and his colleagues. Many years ago Nic wrote the only comprehensive text book in organic farming. ORC has five main areas of interest: research – training/demonstrations – consultancy/advice – schools/ colleges – community initiatives. As the center name implies, the focus is on research. Institutional and staff changes during the last 18 months further solidified this emphasis. I was somewhat disappointed that the grower training, school and community initiatives did not receive more attention. However, the ORC researchers I met gave me a good overview of the highlights in European organic farming research. In England in particular, there is a lot of research emphasis on integrated crops/animal enterprises since most organic farms here raise both field crops and livestock.

ORC used to have several advisors (similar to US extension) on staff who helped growers answer specifically organic Ag questions. However, this service is now greatly diminished when the advisors became self employed (or had to change jobs) after the government almost banned any outside farm visits for fear of spreading Foot & Mouth and BSE (Mad Cow) diseases. Since then, ORC still has a government contract to help growers transition from conventional to organic but there is a good chance that this transition program is getting scrapped in the next weeks as the government is trying to get the soaring national debt under control.

ORC is part of a transatlantic study partnership with the College of the Atlantic (see September blog reports) and the University of Kassel, Germany (where I will visit in a few weeks).It is not clear if this partnership will continue. ORC researchers gave me many contacts across Europe, especially in Germany (two of the researchers at the center were Germans). I had not kept up with the developments there in the last 15 years, thus it was great to find out which of the programs are worthwhile for me to visit in the next months.

ORC staff is teaching some modules in eco-ag distance education programs in Scotland and Spain. My understanding is that students in those programs meet with instructors during one weekend per month only, otherwise the teaching is online. Individual modules are taught by various experts in their respective fields. I am planning to contact some of these distance education course leaders to see what we can learn from them for our teaching at LBCC.

After my conversations with the Centre staff I had to clear my head a bit and went on the 2 mile farm education trail. They had some nice displays about the ecology of the farm and region as well as the day to day work on a livestock farm.

Many thanks to Nic Lampkin, Susanne Paddel and Thomas Doering for their time and insights.