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Tasting is believing

Esoteric practises, like burying manure inside cows’ horns, has put many people off biodynamic agriculture. Now the sensational flavour—and ­ecological benefits—of biodynamic produce is winning them over.

I know a thing or two about farms. My uncles raised sheep, cattle and corn in the rolling hills of Iowa. My wife’s family raises hogs and soybeans on the flat prairie of Minnesota. As a journalist, I’ve visited organic farms in the U.S., Europe and South America. So when walking into a barn full of cows at the Warmonderhof Agricultural School in the Netherlands, I instinctively cover my nose.

But there’s no odour. The mixture of manure, straw, clover and hay smells almost sweet. I must look surprised because Jan Saal, director of the Warmonderhof Foundation that runs the school, tells me with a smile, “Yes, the dung smells different—not a lot of ammonia smell here.” He goes on to say that biodynamic agriculture—a way of farming that involves paying detailed attention to creating high-quality soil—results in lower levels of nitrogen in animal feed and manure, which accounts for the agreeable fragrance of the livestock stalls.

I’m at Warmonderhof Agricultural School, an hour north of Amsterdam by train, to learn about biodynamics, which intrigues me as a method of ecological agriculture—and some believe is the next step beyond organic. But the whole undertaking fuels my skepticism about esoteric practises that purport to bring a spiritual dimension to farming. Crops are planted according to the cycles of the moon. Manure is buried inside cows’ horns, and yarrow blossoms are stuffed into stags’ bladders to give special properties to compost. Crushed quartz is sprayed onto fields in quantities so minute it’s hard to believe it could make a difference. How do I make sense of all this?

Yet, on the other hand, how do I explain the surprising smell of the barn?

Interest in biodynamic agriculture is growing worldwide, sparked by a newfound environmental consciousness, as well as suspicion from some that the organic foods industry is more interested in huge profits than in quality food or careful stewardship of the land.

In Germany, 10 percent of all organically farmed land is biodynamic, according to agronomist Martin Kern of that country’s Research Institute for Biodynamics (IBDF in German). In Australia, membership in the group Biodynamic Agriculture Australia has jumped from 400 to 1,200 in the last seven years, according to CEO Hamish Mackay. He estimates some 50,000 hectares (123,550 acres) are farmed biodynamically across the country. In the U.S., the number of biodynamic operations has tripled since 2004, according to Demeter, the trade association that certifies farms and other food businesses. The group now has 106 members, ranging from a pasta sauce company in New Jersey to a cattle ranch in Arkansas to a creamery in Montana.

There may be more biodynamic farms than international statistics show, since some growers don’t bother with certification because it’s an extensive, expensive process and biodynamic crops don’t yet fetch higher prices than organic ones. Katrina Frey of Frey Vineyards in California, a member of Demeter’s board, notes, “It’s growing rapidly in the United States. There are so many people who want to go beyond organic, some of whom feel that organic has lost its sense as a grassroots movement.”

Wine is the sector in which biodynamic production is surging ahead right now, as winemakers in Europe and on the U.S. West Coast discover it makes a marked difference in the taste of their vintages. A full third of Demeter-certified operations in the U.S. are vineyards or wineries.

Tea is another arena in which biodynamic farming is making inroads. Ambootia, one of several Indian tea concerns that went biodynamic in the 1980s, now farms more than 6,000 hectares (15,000 acres) on 12 estates in Darjeeling and Assam, India. Shashank Goel, founder of the start-up Ineeka Teas, whose family owns Ambootia, notes that, “In Paris, people will pay up to $2,500 a kilo (more than $1,000 a pound) for our tea now. People don’t pay that kind of money unless you have a superior product. It was easy for us to get started. Biodynamic is like the way people have been farming in India for centuries. Thinking of farming spiritually is long-rooted tradition here.”

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