Many products in the Clearspring BioKitchen range, Toasted Pumpkin Seed Oil and our entire Pasta Sauce & Passata range are certified Demeter Organic, but what does that really mean?
Biodynamic and Demeter
Demeter is the quality mark for produce that has been grown biodynamically and the products that use both Demeter produce and approved processes. Named after the Greek goddess of agriculture, this quality mark ensures that food meets the highest quality standards, carefully grown, gently processed and packed.
What is biodynamic farming?
Biodynamic agriculture is the oldest form of organised ecological agriculture, which has its roots in 1924 and has been in a continuous process of development ever since, resulting in methods that are applied on every continent across the world. Biodynamics takes the approach that agriculture can be a cooperation between human beings and nature, where the processes of nature are not only respected but supported to be regenerative for the soil, plants, animals and humans involved.
Each farm and farmer are unique – the farm is an entity which includes the geology, meteorology, and natural world as well as the soil, plants and animals that are cared for on the farm. Each farmer, therefore, becomes responsible, for the well-being of the environment (both wild and domestic), the fertility, and the humanity that are part of the farm, with the aim of harmonising these different living elements into an integrated whole.
Not just fair for farmers – Each step to get food from the soil to the table requires care: from the farmer growing the tomatoes, through gentle processes that retain flavour and nutrition, and finally packing in the best materials available. Each of these steps aims for environmental responsibility, highest quality, and ethical interactions amongst people. This is community agriculture, but these are communities that can stretch just down the road, or halfway around the world.
Food that makes the world a better place – the legacy of biodynamic agriculture is not simply to ‘not cost the earth’, but rather to leave it better than we found it. At this point, conservation is really not enough! Instead, biodynamic agriculture aims for regeneration, leaving soils more fertile and stable, the environment more diverse and resilient, and human beings well-nourished. This is agriculture that truly serves the environment and humanity.
For more information please see:
Demeter International (www.demeter.net)
BDA Certification (www.bdcertification.org.uk)
FiBL’s document on the Sustainability and quality of organic (and Demeter) food (http://www.organicresearchcentre.com/manage/authincludes/article_uploads/Dossier_Quality_E_light.pdf)
