Fri, 29 Sep 2006

Sekem products go online

CAIRO (NNA) - The popular biodynamic herb teas from the Sekem farm in Egypt, are now also available for sale in Europe.

The Berlin-based company Sekem Vertriebs GmbH, a subsidiary of Sekem/Egypt, started selling the teas via its website www.sekemshop.com in June. “By marketing our products in this way we offer many more people the opportunity to support the Sekem initiative in a concrete way,” said Rasmus Bjerregaard, managing director of the new company.

Other Sekem products which can be ordered from the website, which ships not just to Germany but also to other European countries, include coffee, dates and rice as well as herbs for the creative organic cook. Further expansion of the range is planned.

Link: www.sekemshop.com

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Item: 060929-03EN Date: 20 September 2006

Copyright 2006 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See http://www.nna-news.org/copyright/

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Three women move into top jobs at the Goetheanum

DORNACH (NNA) - In a move which will make the leadership of the General Anthroposophical Society and the sections of School of Spiritual Science less male dominated, three women have taken up top jobs at the Goetheanum in Dornach.

The Finnish physician and general secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Finland, Seija Zimmermann, has joined the executive council of the General Anthroposophical Society; Ursula Gruber, a sculptor from Austria, has been appointed head of the Art Section; and the eurythmist and former general secretary of the Norwegian Anthroposophical Society, Margarete Solstad has become leader of the Section for the Art of Eurythmy, Speech, Drama and Music.

The appointments will go some way to redressing what executive council member Paul Mackay described as the “excessively male dominated” character of the leadership.

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Photos available from the Goetheanum Press Office: wolfgang.held@goetheanum.ch, tel. +41 (0)61/706 42 61

Item: 090629-02EN Date: 29 September 2006

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Critical voices about the biogas boom in agriculture

By Michæl Olbrich-Majer

DARMSTADT (NNA). Milking cows, selling milk and producing electricity on the side – rather a nice idea, actually. In Germany, farmers are discovering the energy producer in their job profile. Maybe they are even making a contribution to slowing down climate change in view of the forecast rise in temperatures of 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. If ten years ago there were 150 farmers, at most, pioneering such a development, above all organic and Demeter farmers using biogas from dung and slurry, the number has in the meantime risen to almost 5000 farmers today – most of them operating on a conventional basis. And the trend is still rising fast.

The systems for producing biogas are growing bigger, large enough to supply whole communities, and farmers are thinking about abandoning animal husbandry - hard work with poor returns - in order to cultivate the crops that will feed the bacteria in the biogas converter. As a result, dairies are starting to worry about where they are going to source their raw material while organisations for the protection of the environment are raising concerns about the diversity of meadows. Biogas, together with biofuel, has become extremely popular as a tradable energy product, not least due to government support.

Both fundamentally sustainable uses are now increasingly becoming subject to criticism. Fuel from plants competes for agricultural land with other important sustainability targets, the German Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) says, referring to organic farming, biotope protection systems and erosion protection. Furthermore, the reduction in the gases causing climate change is minimal: maximum utilisation at two million tonnes of oilseed rape per year produces a saving of no more than 1.5 to two percent. In an article in the biodynamic journal Lebendige Erde (1/2006), Andreas Obermeier from the UBA therefore appealed for the much more efficient stationary use of renewable energy sources.

Biogas, too, has come under critical scrutiny. Although there are plenty of scientific appeals for energy self-sufficiency by agricultural enterprises – organic farms seem particularly suited for this – there has not been a single study of the effect of the fermentation residues from biogas production on soil fertility. Slurry or dung minus energy – does such a substrate with fewer carbon compounds give the soil strength and build up humus? Demeter farms in particular take a sceptical view – some biodynamic farmers have many years of experience with biogas – with very variable results so that profitability, too, is questionable in some instances. That is the case even given the premium on selling the electricity. As the soil scientist, Dr.  Edwin Scheller, explains in the July issue of Lebendige Erde: What emerges from the biogas plant is perfect ammonium fertilizer, precisely what conventional farmers buy from the agrochemical industry, but not what organic farmers want. Because the latter does not restore soil fertility. The amino acid composition of slurry and dung is also changed, which explains the absence of humus formation. Essential forces are introduced into the soil and plants through dung and slurry – a component of the biodynamic principle for developing soil fertility and a basis for food quality. These forces, Scheller suspects, are damaged through fermentation, something which was confirmed by one Swiss Demeter farmer. He had slurry examined using new research methods into the formative forces of plants by Dorian Schmidt before and after fermentation.

There is, however, still a huge and urgent need for further research. First results indicate problematic trends but there are many different fermentation techniques and materials which can be used and whose effect on the quality of the soil and food need to be investigated to make recommendations as regards the practical implementation. This includes the optimisation of the fermentation process, for example through biodynamic preparations. Yet there is only marginal research in this field due to a lack of finance and commissions. In boom times nobody cares too much. Thus Demeter farmers remain cautious about investing in new plant with the result that other organic farmers are able to produce their grain more cheaply using the growth-promoting fermented fertilizer. Organic farmers are in any case more energy efficient than their conventional colleagues: they use less than half the energy for a given area.

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Michæl Olbrich-Majer is editor of Lebendige Erde

Item: 060929-01EN Date: 29 September 2006

Copyright 2006 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See http://www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: http://www.nna-news.org/