Care for the Earth by caring for your earth
Recently, I had the pleasure of a field trip to Roseneath Organics in South Australia, as part of the Biodynamic Association of Australia’s annual conference.
Roseneath Organics’ founder, Adam Voysey, wasn’t always in the business of growing medicinal herbs; he was previously an engineer. When Adam’s stress-related health problems could not be effectively treated with conventional medicine, he took it upon himself to find a cure. He found it in the humble herb calendula, and his admiration for the power of herbs started a new career.
During our tour around his beautiful farm, Adam enthusiastically shared his knowledge of herbs. We learnt that some powerful healing herbs are common weeds such as petty spurge (Euphorbia pepulus). A traditional remedy for warts, CSIRO studies shows it acts against skin cancer. Another example Adam gave was the pepino plant, which is known for its fruit, but also holds an important medicine - the juice of its stem and flowers can be used to help treat drug addiction.
Roseneath Organics herb farm is NASAA certified organic and relies on biodynamic methods to maintain fertility in a stony hillside in Hahndorf, Adelade Hills, South Australia. On a small farm of four hectares, a huge variety of mostly perennial herbs are grown for use in healing and skincare products. The hillside has been terraced, and microclimates are created with shadecloth-covered areas and a greenhouse for subtropical species. A cohesive workforce has been created by moving the office to the growing and drying site, with the production facility at Mylor.
Herbal compost teas such as stinging nettle, yarrow, comfrey, and casuarina, are mixed with worm wee, biodynamic manure concentrate and 500. This mixture is stirred in a flowform for one hour, and then watered onto the compost heaps as they are built. The compost heaps are also enriched with basalt rock dust and zeolite to hold nutrition. The worm farm is constructed of large plastic pots so the matured worm compost can be carried directly to where it is needed. As the soil is poor, the terraced beds are dressed with well matured compost several inches thick before planting. Water is another limiting factor, and dam water is used judiciously to keep most plants alive during the very hot summer. The dam is covered to reduce evaporation.
When a customer requests a natural cure for a particular condition, Adam develops a new product for them, knowing there are other people searching for the same thing. Adam first thoroughly researches his library of traditional, Ayuvedic and Eastern herbalism, and then creates a remedy combining the best and safest herbs. Adam makes his products in small batches from scratch – no generic base creams are used. Roseneath’s by-line is “totally natural products that work”. This is achieved by using active ingredients in therapeutic doses, so results are quick and effective. For example, the head lice lotion is 96% effective, according to the results of trials at Flinders University.
Adam uses niche marketing rather than trying to compete with the big organic skin care manufacturers. He feels there is deception in many products marketed as natural, organic or herbal which contain very little of the promoted ingredient. The quality of Roseneath Organics products sells themselves, and sales are mainly through word of mouth.
You can purchase Roseneath Organics products at www.roseneathorganics.com.
While at the recent Biodynamic Agriculture Australia Conference, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sid Hazel. Sid is a tutor of Organic Horticulture at Coffs Harbour TAFE (Technical and Further Education Institute) and is involved in some great environmental initiatives in Bellingen, on the mid-north coast of New South Wales.
In this podcast Sid discusses the advent of Transition Towns, which are part of Rob Hopkins’ (UK) proactive response to the question, “Can you imagine your town beyond oil?” Rob’s vision is a town that incorporates resilience, sustainability, and environmental responsibility through growing food where people live (zero food miles), thereby reducing the CO2 emissions generated by the distance food currently travels. Rather than waiting on governments to provide answers, communities decide their future, and indeed their children’s future. Australian Transition Town initiatives are currently underway in Hervey Bay, Armidale, Bellingen, Bell, Newcastle and on the Sunshine Coast.
In Bellingen, Sid is involved in a community garden, a local food network, and efforts to create community supported agriculture enterprises. Sid says the Bellingen Local Food Network is about “local food for local people”, which reflects a growing trend for food sovereignty which emerged from the peasant farmers’ movement, La Via Campesina, and offers a community empowering and environmental alternative to the global food production system.
Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is a socio-economic model of agriculture and food distribution. A CSA consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes the community’s farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. CSA’s focus is usually on a system of weekly delivery or pick-up of vegetables and fruit. The CSA movement began in the early 1960s in Germany, Switzerland and Japan as a response to concerns about food safety and the urbanisation of agricultural land. Groups of consumers and farmers in Europe formed co-operative partnerships to fund farming and pay the full costs of ecologically sound, socially equitable agriculture. In Europe, many of the CSA style farms were inspired by the economic ideas of Rudolf Steiner and experiments with community agriculture took place on farms using biodynamic agriculture.
CSAs are yet to catch on in Australia, with just three that I’m aware of: foodconnect.com.au, purplepear.net.au/csa.html, and biodynamic-food.com.
Purple Pear Garden with chicken enclosures
Community gardens are “about taking back the ability to produce food for ourselves. At the supermarket, you not only don’t connect to the food system, but the money goes out of the region. People are looking for a sense of community, and they find it in their local community garden” (Claire Cummings). Find Australian community gardens and community supported agriculture at communityfoods.org.au.
Hear what Sid has to say by clicking the play button below.
In this video, we show you how to make and apply biodynamic tree paste. Before you watch the video, take a look at our earlier post on tree paste, which details how to make and apply it.
Backyard Biodynamics is a place where you can learn, share and be engaged by biodynamic gardening in your own backyard. 