HIGH YIELDS AND HIGHER HOPES

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Mechanized agriculture relies on chemical fertilizers which—because they gradually deplete the earth's capacity to produce—must be applied in increasingly large doses in order to keep annual harvests from declining. Biodynamic/French intensive techniques, on the other hand, build the soil and thus encourage better and better yearly production.

To date, 62 different crops—including rice, wheat, and fruits—have been test-grown at "Common Ground" with varying degrees of thoroughness and success judging from our experience and that of others, it appears that the biodynamic/ French intensive method will produce four to six times the U.S. national per-acre average of protein source beans, grains, and rice, 8 times the average soft fruit and vegetable yield, and 4 to 8 times as much seed.

As staggering as those statistics may seem, they're absolutely mind-blowing when compared to world averages, which are much lower than those of the U.S. In fact, the worldwide figure in the bean, grain, and rice category is 203times less than the yield which can be expected with b/F techniques!

MINIMAL RESOURCE USE

Obviously, high crop yields alone do not a viable agricultural system make . . . not—that is—in today's world, where virtually every natural resource is at a premium. So it's especially significant that biodynamic/French intensive farming uses water, land, fertilizer, and energy in a very miserly way.

For instance, our experiments in vegetable production required only 1 /2 to 1 /8 as much water per pound of food produced as that consumed by commercial agribiz . . . and we were working with relatively out-of-shape soil! The Community Environmental Council in Santa Barbara, which is conducting similar tests on better ground, boasts a water-use record of 1/10 the "normal" amount required. And once again, the major "components" of the technique, intermeshed as a whole system, are together responsible for the figures.

Research has shown that soil containing 2% active organic matter (such as the compost used in our beds) needs only 1/4 the rainfall or irrigation required by poor land . . . that shaded areas (such as those formed by intensive planting) decrease moisture evaporation by 13%—16% . . . and that earth which contains large quantities of nutrients (encouraged, in our case, by adding decayed vegetable matter to deeply dug beds) can reduce transpiration of water through leaves and stems by as much as 10% to 75%.

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