A magnum opus, Fifty Years of Biodynamic Farming: Essays From the Field is Henning Sehmsdorf \'s tribute and testament to Biodynamic living and farming. (Gigi Berardi, Author FoodWISE, Biodynamic cheesemaker, Shaw Island, WA
Director, Resilient Farm Project
Professor, Urban and Environmental Planning & Policy, Huxley College of the Environment, Western Washington University)..
Fifty Years of Biodynamic Farming is a unique study, and exceptionally useful for any student or practitioner of organics or biodynamics, or life, really, as it is nothing short of a treasure trove of lessons From lives truly lived with great curiosity, meaning, and beauty.
Together with Simpson, Sehmsdorf has built a life of deep connection, with commitment to service and education.
It\'s what has powered his fifty-year farm plan, and what keeps Sehmsdorf researching, discovering, and creating today.
In his concluding essay, The Spirituality of the Soil: The Idea of Teleology From Aristotle to Rudolf Steiner, Sehmsdorf \'s unifying apprehension of cosmos and life as indwelling, transformative, and spiritual is manifest.
Or, the conceptually brilliant Emergy (Embodied Energy) Analysis of S&S Homestead Farm by Andrew Haden (with Sehmsdorf).
Favorite Essays include Sehmsdorf \'s life and farm partner Elizabeth Simpson\'s The Viable Family Farm, and Sehmsdorf \'s own Home Food Security and Farming for Health, all stunning in their scope.
The authors take on gluten intolerance, ecological livestock raising and the case for responsible animal care, bee colony collapse and concepts such as Goethe\'s theories around color and plant morphology.
From personal histories with biodynamics to nutritionally-whole foods, herbal medicine, solar-powered micro-irrigation to the spirituality of the farm, Sehmsdorf and his colleagues reveal and discuss farming as a practice both sacred and personal.
Dozens of topics are organized into seven chapters, and their consideration is comprehensive.
In writing and editing this collection of thirty-two essays, Sehmsdorf has created an enduring work that will be an invaluable tool for students and practitioners of holistic and self-sufficient food growing.
A magnum opus, Fifty Years of Biodynamic Farming: Essays From the Field is Henning Sehmsdorf \'s tribute and testament to Biodynamic living and farming
