Holzman - Radical regenerative gardening and farming: biodynamic principles and perspectives

Frank Holzman is an organic horticulturist and sustainable farming consultant. Holzman started his career as a landscape maintenance gardener in the San Francisco Bay Area. After studying agricultural sciences at the university, he studied organic horticulture in Santa Cruz, California. He learned about biodynamics in Alan Chadwicks garden at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He worked on farms and gardens in California, Oregon, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Georgia. His work has also taken him to seven countries, primarily in Southeast Asia and Central America, establishing education programs and consulting on creating healthy ecosystems. Holzman also serves as president of Recovery Eco Agriculture Project, working on sustainable land use, education, and research and development.

The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation of human beings.

Masanubo Fukuoka

I N THE LATE 1960S AND EARLY 1970S, ecology became a popular buzzword and the subject of much study around campuses in the United States. An increasing awareness was growing around concerns about our natural environment. It was the birth of the ecology movement. Previous writings brought awareness to environmental concerns. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson inspired much of the ideology being embraced. Recycling, renewable energy, and bans on synthetic chemicals used to grow our food were all topics being addressed.

In 1970 the first Earth Day was established as an awareness campaign. With all the concerns about cleaning up the environment, most folks had little idea about where their food was coming from. It was a generation that had been disconnected from its food source.

During that same time, the Green Revolution was in full swing. Large chemical companies were setting up programs, mostly in developing countries, to persuade the local farmers to buy into a packaged product that would drastically change the way they farmed. The idea was to convince these farmers to use newly, developed hybridized seed that would produce better yields. In order for this program to work effectively, farmers would need to purchase the tractors and new equipment and start a program using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. It was a complete package.

This strategy was a program that would create dependence on the chemical companies and the banks loaning the money. Farmers were convinced to sell the soul of their farm for the idyllic dreams of modern society. This program would completely alter the face of farming in these countries. As a result, the farmers lost hundreds of years of gene pools that had been passed down to them. The seeds they inherited from their elders would become extinct.

It was sold as a package deal. In order to farm with the newly developed seed, they needed synthetic chemicals in the form of fertilizers and pesticides and a tractor that was previously not needed. The farmers became burdened by loans to pay for their tractors and equipment. Many of these farmers had no idea how to use these new methods of farming and never before needed a bank loan. But most importantly, the soils became toxic from the chemicals used. This provided an inexpensive source of food to export to the United States and Europe. Killing off natures balance created a dependency on the chemicals to do the work.

This was the same program used to change farming in the United States in the middle of the last century. Small-scale farming, the heart of agriculture, became agribusiness that was corporate sponsored. During this time, pockets of young people became interested in getting back to the land and growing food for themselves and their families. The land grant colleges taught only chemical farming concepts, so there was a new movement to grow food naturally. This required people to reinvent the wheel and discover new methods of growing without synthetic chemicals. This new approach meant learning from nature, not dominating it. It became a more sensitive approach of developing an understanding of how nature really works; it is the idea of working with nature not against it.

The ecology movement at Berkeley was largely promoted at the Berkeley Ecology Project. It highlighted publications on exciting things to learn about the environment, such as recycling, tree planting, and organic gardening. The community gardens were hosts to radical concepts, where signs were spray-painted with ideological sayings like Squash the State and Give Peas a Chance. Ecology as a science was being introduced on campus. The curriculum of ecology was relatively new. In an ecology class at UC Berkeley, I was introduced to the complexities of ecosystems. Off campus, environmental issues were often viewed as to their human and often politically negative impact on the environment.

As my education evolved I began to understand how my awareness of the environment would affect my view of life sciences. After all, I was in Berkeley and it was the 1970s. It was easy to adopt what was called a biological approach, which later became geared more toward sustainable practices. With experiences in community gardens around town and the Integral Urban House, there were a lot of different perspectives on what was being taught at the university. As my awareness of the environment could be applied to land use through agriculture and horticulture, it started to become clear how we all play an important role in this world we live in. Reading books like Radical Agriculture by Richard Merrill did a lot to raise my consciousness. I later studied horticulture in Merrills class at Cabrillo College.

Ecology was popularized by Eugene Odum, an American biologist considered the father of ecology. He did a lot of his fundamental work while at the University of Georgia. Along with his brother Howard he published Fundamentals of Ecology. The term ecology was first coined by a German biologist, Ernst Haechel (18341919). The common science is human ecology. This is the study of human interactions as it relates to societal conditions.

Ecology comes from the Greek word eco, meaning houseso study of the household. Ecology is the science of relationships between organisms and their environment. We are part of that broader environment; the broader environment is referred to as macroecology. It is a mixture of microcommunities that blend together and operate as one organism. Plants have the amazing ability to trap the suns energy through photosynthesis and manufacture food, which allows the rest of us to live.

The ecosystem is composed of producers, consumers, and decomposers. Each environment has a unique set of dynamics that is intertwined and cohesive. It consists of many levels of plants, animals, insects, and microbial communities living symbiotically. The ecosystem represents many stages of growth, and it is ever changing and transforming. Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space as it relates to geological time. Organisms and biological communities vary and morph along gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation, and areas of habitat.

When humans move into this circle, they are upsetting the existing balance. It is important to try to minimize our impact on that balance. In other words, dont jump into the biological pool with a belly flop or a cannonball. Step into it gracefully. You dont have to be so loud. Everyone will already know you are there.

The key is how to protect and enhance this group of microenvironments so as not to upset the fragile balance. It hosts a large range of resources ready for you to discover. Before you plant, conducting an assessment of all existing life and their habitats will be beneficial. Youll want to consider insect and earthworm populations, temperature gradients, small animal habitats, and water reservoirs. If you have mushrooms after a good rain, the soil is rich in microbial and fungal life.