Setting Up an Agricultural Enterprise

 

By Hugh Lovel

 

At The Start

1. Plan

Part of this mix is maps, soil tests and a wide range of studies to fund the imagination and attainment of skills. The other part is inspiration, desire and initiative.

2. Build that most important capital item–soil fertility and robust ecology.

This comes first and it isn’t even on any balance sheet. Yet, it is the most important asset of every agricultural enterprise. Enjoy a big chuckle while writing off input expenses and hiding investment gains from appraisers and tax collectors. Other infrastructure like roads, fencing, hydrology, buildings, machinery and livestock are secondary and should come along later. Since we are in the IT age, couple this with the old adage, ‘Observation is the Basis of Intelligence.’

 

An Outline of Priorities

0.0. To use your resources to their fullest requires knowing what you’ve got and what you don’t have. As part of the examination process before buying a new property, do a comprehensive soil test, such as the Quantum Soil Analysis, which involves both soluble and total tests. Of course you may inherit land or this might come after putting money down and signing a bit of paperwork, but the principle should be clear.

1.1. Go to Google Earth and download an aerial map of the property.

1.2. Draw the boundaries carefully around it.

1.3. Apply a full complement of Biodynamic Preparations to kick off the life processes.

Recommendations can be confusing about how to apply a biodynamic program. There are many options and hardly anyone agrees. At the risk of offending the orthodox, traditional, fearful and only-one-right-way folks, I would stick my aerial map of the area with its property boundaries and an intent written on it in my radionic instrument and start radionically applying a biodynamic preparation complex using quantum non-locality and entanglement. Stirring and spraying, putting up a Field Broadcaster, putting preparations in irrigation water and ‘Tea Bags’ in all the water troughs, putting small vials of preps at strategic energy intersections and holding prep burial and retrieval parties all tend to take a lot more doing and can come later.

For those new to radionics who don’t have a radionic instrument, print out a copy of the map, draw the boundaries on it and inscribe the following formula of intent:

“If it be Thy will, let the powers of nature converge to increase and enhance the beneficial energies and transform any detrimental energies into beneficial ones, within the boundaries as marked, for now and in the future, for as long as is appropriate, in deep gratitude, Amen.” 

Laminate this map and paint on it some stirred Earth Legacy Field Activator (a complex of all the biodynamic preparations in one easy-to-use formula.)*

Along with the map, Google search ‘radionic projection wheel’ and download the image file. Print off a projection wheel and laminate it. Find a spot with good, healthy warmth and light. Place the laminated map on top of the Projection Wheel and say the intentional prayer “If it be Thy will . . . .” If dowsers prefer they can check for the appropriateness of the spot, when best to begin and how long to continue.

Projecting the influences of the biodynamic preparations via the aerial map launches a paper radionic program, which works on the fluid dynamic principle that a microscopic change at a point can effect large scale changes in the medium. According to the definition section in my early book, A Biodynamic Farm, I would call this sympathetic magic or sympathetic vibratory physics. Paradoxically if one doubts that this works then it won’t. Otherwise this works wonderfully well.

1.4. Study the lay of the land as thoroughly as possible. Existing watercourses, roads, fences, wooded and cleared areas, rock outcropping and wind-swept ridges, all are important features of the asset base. Water flows downhill and soil tends to follow, while warmth and air flow upward. A topographical map, oriented north south so you know the path of the Sun, will get you started; but you have to apply this to laying out the property. Get P. A. Yoeman’s book Water For Every Farm and do your best to keyline your property so you catch and conserve all the water you can. Get help if you need it.

Hydrogen the principle component of water, is the gateway to organization and organization is the basis of life. Keep in mind that life arises at boundaries. (That’s why it is key to draw the boundary around the property on the map.) As the smallest element, hydrogen is almost all surface and virtually no content. As a feature of nature this is very special, as a surface is a boundary and plenty of hydrogen maximizes boundaries. Hydrogen is the gateway to life. Life is all in the activity rather than the substance. Since hydrogen comes first, have a care to conserving, managing and using it well.

1.5. Diversity of species gets a lot of dynamic synergy going, which is what feeds soil fertility and builds ecological bounty. Synergy involves a mathematics not taught in most schools, since in a living, dynamic system 10 plus 10 can add up to 25 or 30. In most math classes that is a flunk, but in an agricultural enterprise this is meat, potatoes and gravy. A diverse soil cover is the beginning of synergy—so cover all bare spots—if not with plants, with some sort of mulch to create habitat for soil animals.

1.6. Maximize biomass production.

This is the plant side of things. Gabe Brown in North Dakota, one of the most inhospitable places to farm in the USA, is a great example for us all, as is Colin Seis in NSW. The rule of thumb here is, ‘export no more than 8% of your total biomass production if you want your asset base to grow’. Selling off hay, for example, is not a good idea. Selling meat, milk, pumpkins or apples generally is a good idea if we don’t buy in to the toxic chemical/soluble fertilizer death and fear rubbish. Let life thrive and watch closely. It has a wonderous way of sorting itself out.

1.7. Maximize digestive activity. This is the animal side of things. Most important is the protozoa, the smallest animal life in the soil. (Don’t forget the hydrogen in water or the fact that life arises at boundaries.) These microscopic animals move about at the finest level, and a thriving ecosystem requires robust protozoal activity working at the surfaces of soil particles where warmth, air, water and life meet solid substance. Ants, earthworms, cows, bees, eagles and everything in between should be taken into account—a huge diversity.

Also consider mowing or grazing summer and winter vegetation at the peak of its biomass productivity, and laying it down on top of the next season’s seeds. This is a digestive activity that sets the stage to maximize biomass production.

On the other hand, consider mechanical cultivation. Though this too is a digestive activity, it devastates the soil food web while aerating and exposing the surfaces of soil particles to the warmth and air, sometimes in the absence of water and life. Use cultivation with care. High populations of the smallest animal life in the soil does the job at the finest level and does it better.

1.8. Fertility inputs from outside the property—if they are the right ones—can be a big multiplier. Base your inputs and amounts on comprehensive soil testing and the biological sequence of importance of what has to be functional before the next thing kicks in. From this viewpoint, even in the most compacted soils, sulfate exposes the surfaces of soil particles to oxygen. After all, sulfate is SO₄⁼ which, as a soluble ion with four oxygens that travels with water everywhere. Water, of course, carries oxygen. This tends to be the source of corrosion in anaerobic water-logged soils. Sulfate, on the other hand, carries useable, surplus oxygen. That and a little humic acid, kicks off the life processes. Then boron, silica (mostly made available at the surfaces of soil particles) and lime precede the utilization of nitrogen, which is 78% of the air we breathe.

Also, just so you know, it’s a relatively rare soil that doesn’t have significant reserves of magnesium, phosphorous, trace minerals and potassium, but it does happen. A total test will give the true picture here. Anything deficient in the soluble test may indeed be needed to ‘prime the pump’ so that access to soil reserves can occur. It helps to add compost, raw humates or refined humic acids along with inputs such as gypsum, lime, rock phosphate and sea minerals—especially boron. This feeds the inputs to the soil food web.

1.9. Keep records.

The doing has to come first, but keeping track of the doing facilitates feedback to see what is working and how. This is essential for fine tuning the enterprise. Remember, this is the IT age. Establish GPS points for such things as taking pictures, soil test sites, spreading fertilizers, planting trees, measuring areas and elevations, mapping resources, siting buildings and fences, etc. Feed this data stream into a computer program that can correlate the data. This is important for future planning as well as documentary background for interaction with others in the fields of science, education, finance, law, politics, community planning and social interaction.

 

 

 

In Sum

It helps that a few of us here and there know the methods and benefits of building a holistic, living system, but the vast majority of folks do not. We need to enroll them in this kind of restorative agricultural agenda before the wider world flushes the toilet. Then we’ll see.

 

*In Australia this can be obtained by contacting Biodynamic Agriculture Australia (BAA), +61 (0)2 6655 0566. In New Zealand go to BD Max, which sells an even easier to use homeopathic complex under the name Etherics 1000. Quantum Agriculture also is preparing to market a homeopathic 8x version of all the preps called Ecology Activator. Other sources of biodynamic preparations exist elsewhere throughout the world.

Hugh Lovel is a farmer, scientist and teacher of Quantum Agriculture. Author of A Biodynamic Farm and Quantum Agriculture, his articles appear in ACRES, Australia and News Leaf, the Journal of Biodynamic Agriculture Australia (BAA). When in Australia he and his wife, Shabari Bird, reside in Wiangaree, NSW and can be reached at 02 6636 2274.