music by Jóhann Jóhannsson
This documentary takes us to the biodynamic farm of Niels Stokholm (1933—2022). It’s beautifully shot, the music is angelic, and you’d be forgiven to think this farm is a paradise. Probably it is, in summer.
While I don’t buy the pseudoscience of biodynamics (no, plant growth doesn’t depend on lunar phases, not to mention the position of Mars), it’s nice to see a guy who genuinely cares about the living beings in his charge, including those to be slaughtered next day. Harmless, in Pauli’s sense. Is it?
For all Niels’s talk about sustainability, organic farming (which subsumes biodynamic farming) is anything but sustainable. Stokholm’s farm may supply their produce (“100% natural” and “chemical-free”, whatever that means) to a handful of posh restaurants. Good for them. Good for Niels. But that’s about it. To quote Jay Rayner,
We need to keep reminding ourselves just how difficult it is to keep a mass population fed, and what a brilliant job large-scale agriculture does.
Niels’s opinion, surprise surprise, is that there is a capitalist conspiracy of chemical companies who just want to sell more fertiliser. On the third hand (provided we had one), if you want to be, or to keep being, certified as an organic or even biodynamic farmer, you’ve got to follow certain rules, and Niels seems to be determined to break them. Maybe, as Tamara suggested, he’s just taking the piss.
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