Even as the so-called "Green Revolution" was becoming widely perceived as a failed experiment, one man was already hard at work trying to reverse the reliance on chemicals and monocultured crops in the country perhaps hit hardest by this imported regime: India. New Zealander Peter Proctor's life work has rightly seen him dubbed "the father of modern biodynamics", and to a greater extent his efforts alone are now transforming the agriculture of significant portions of India, revitalizing soils and reintroducing and enhancing age-old techniques to provide sustainable production. And though Peter's name may be unfamiliar elsewhere, there are university courses and a whole biodynamic campus in the sub-continent based on the principles he espouses, and where he is recognised as nothing short of a saviour of traditional Indian village life.

In essence the difference between organic and biodynamic is that the latter is a holistic approach working with "etheric" forces in nature as much as physical ones, based on the principles of multi-disciplined philosopher/educator Rudolf Steiner. Its principal material: cow dung. With cows sacred in India that's one material that's always plentiful. But it took someone with the requisite knowledge of how to enhance it into healthy humus-laden soil to realise its full bounty. (Here's a more in-depth article on biodynamics, which includes references to Proctor's work. Or you might try Peter's own book on the subject, Grasp the Nettle, available here.) An octogenarian with the energy of a man half his age, who thinks nothing of visiting and lecturing in ten villages or more a day, Peter Proctor was working at Hohepa Homes, a Steiner-based special needs community and farm in New Zealand's Hawke's Bay, when he was approached by Indian farmer and aid worker Shri TJK Menon in 1993. Menon had learnt of biodynamics, and of Peter, during a trip to Australia and, seeing the methods as uniquely suitable for restoring India's farmlands, sought out and pestered Peter to visit. He did, and has since made 25 journeys to India, spending more than half his time there in the last 15 years. Virtually unheralded in his own country, Peter rapidly became a cult figure in diverse parts of India where his knowledge was gratefully seized upon by thousands of farmers facing terminal soil and water problems as a result of reliance on Western chemical methods. So much was he appreciated, and so quickly were his methods adopted, that in late 2004 Peter and his partner Rachel Pomeroy decided to base themselves permanently in India, teaching and working out of the Bhaktivedanta Academy for Sustainable Integrated Living (BASIL) near Mysore (linked above). Two other Hawke's Bay locals, Thomas and Barbara Burstyn, followed Peter on this last journey and have made a thought-provoking documentary film of his work and its results, called "How to Save the World"; subtitle: "One Man, One Cow, One Planet". The film has now won numerous international awards, and though to be picky it starts a bit messily and has some holes in the narrative that beg further explanation, overall it is a competent and indeed startling revelation both of the value of Peter's work and of biodynamics in particular. Moreover it strongly suggests India will soon be the niche grower of organics in the global marketplace -- a position that might have been New Zealand's. The film is certainly inspiring, and, because it's never too late to change, anyone involved in farming should get hold of a copy and think carefully about what they see and hear. Unfortunately India's increasingly hotter climate has finally proved too much for Peter, and he and Rachel have recently returned to Hawke's Bay for good, where they have this month (May) been honoured with a civic award for their work. They leave behind literally hundreds of thousands of farmers with renewed hope in their revitalised soils thanks to Peter's methodology, and the satisfaction that this "grass-roots revolution", as Peter likes to call it, is spreading even faster than he alone could hope for. Still, to meet and speak with this amazing man is to feel the strength of the primal life-forces of the world washing over you, and to appreciate that if this vibrant elder fruit of a biodynamic lifestyle can make a 50-year-old feel aged in comparison then his ethos must be worth believing and practicing. As Peter says, it's simple. So simple that it is, surely, impossible to ignore. Further Reading:

• Orchestrating Famine: A Must-Read Backgrounder on the Food Crisis