Ken Dickerson is executive director of EcoFarm, whose 34th annual conference on sustainable farming opens Jan. 22 at Asilomar. Photo by Chip Scheuer.
Ken Dickerson is sitting in his Soquel office wearing a pink scarf and a blue shirt with an apple on it that says “Dirt First.”
“‘Dirt First’ is about positivity in the approach to the soil—to appreciate the biological mysteries that are there and delve deeper into it,” says Dickerson, executive director of EcoFarm. “If you start with the dirt first, you can build a culture, a society, health, find solutions to the problems of the world on a solid foundation.”
With that in mind, nonprofit EcoFarm is putting together a four-day event to support sustainable farming. The 34th annual conference will kick off on Wednesday Jan. 22 in Pacific Grove with a pre-conference on biodynamic agriculture—an approach to farming that emphasizes compost, minerals, herbs and manure to create a farm that supports itself. Someday people might think of it as a new step beyond organic.
“The farm is a living organism,” Dickerson says. “The ideal is to create a system that’s in balance and in harmony. Animals have a role to play in that farm. And the manure from those animals make a fertility loop to create an integral functioning system.”
The discussion over biodynamics fits with conference themes of creating sustainable food and making it economically feasible to produce, says EcoFarm program coordinator Liz Birnbaum.
“There’s this expanding interest in holistic farming from the seed to the table,” Birnbaum says. “The idea of marketing is a very important concern for producers.”
The EcoFarm conference will bring to the table experts and speakers like Maria Rodale, who argues organic foods are better for the planet and as capable of feeding the world’s populations as conventional foods are. Also speaking will be Temple Grandin—the autistic woman who created a more humane ways to slaughter cattle that is now used for half the nation’s beef production. All the while, the event aims to engage young farmers. With 60 percent of the country’s farmers over 55 years old and nearing retirement, policy makers are starting to worry about the future of the America’s food supply.
In addition to the biodynamic pre-conference, EcoFarm will host a workshop on biodynamic certification, which is done by German group Demeter. Jim Fullmer and Elizabeth Candelario, co-directors of Demeter, will speak at the workshop. Representatives of companies like Amy’s Kitchen that are thinking about launching biodynamic product lines will give presentations, too.
“Part of what they want to do is present farmers a new opportunity that’s emerging,” Dickerson says. “A number of companies, led by Whole Foods, are interested in presenting a biodynamic line. And so there’s this potential opportunity for people who are interested in biodynamics.”
Curiosity in biodynamics began sprouting almost a hundred years ago and has been growing ever since, but Dickerson says the ideas have not yet gained the footing in California that they have in the Midwest, the East Coast, Canada and Europe.
Based on the work of Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner, biodynamics isn’t entirely grounded in science, and some interpretations fuse spirituality and astrology with agriculture.
“Biodynamics is not a formula. It does not come with a nice, neat little recipe,” says Robert Karp, executive director of Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association. “It’s a set of creative ideas to stimulate farmers. Some of them pick and choose different things.
“Definitely there’s this idea that the plants and soil are impacted by the sun and the moon and planets and the stars the way the tides are impacted by them. Many biodynamic farmers plant in harmony in lunar cycles, or they place different crops at different times based on the positions of the sun and moon and constellations. That’s a part of biodynamics—the idea that earth and the cosmos are much more intimately connected than most people think.”
Dickerson says the connections are important, and all begin with the food. The idealist and self-described “news junkie” says when it comes to fixing the world’s problems, he and the organic community have decided to start on the ground.
“We gather and we work further to provide this base fundamental building block of any healthy consciousness, of any healthy person, of any healthy society,” Dickerson says. “Food is medicine. It’s integral to health. That’s physical health. It’s also mental health. It’s also societal health.”
For more information about the EcoFarm conference, visit eco-farm.org.
