• Part of the political and scientific world maintains that biodynamic agriculture has no scientific basis, and associates certain preparations, such as horn manure, with esoteric practices.
• To get a close look at biodynamic agriculture, we visited the Cascine Orsine farm, which produces rice and cheeses in the Parco del Ticino.
• Founded on a strict set of regulations and subject to certification, biodynamic agriculture seeks to work in harmony with nature and the ecosystem, promoting soil health and animal welfare.

Take a cow's horn from an animal that has calved at least once, fill it with manure and bury it for the winter period, then dig it up in spring and dilute its contents with spring or rainwater at 37 °C: this is how, according to the regulations of biodynamic agriculture, preparation 500 is obtained — a fundamental substance to be spread on the land to revitalise the soil and support plant development.

The stuff of sorcerers? Something that belongs purely to the realm of esotericism and magic? According to part of the scientific and political world, that is precisely the case; for biodynamic farmers, however, it is one of the most powerful (and natural) fertilisers in existence. To find out more, we visited the biodynamic farm Cascine Orsine, located in Bereguardo, in the province of Pavia.

Biodynamic agriculture: the holistic vision of the farm in harmony with nature and the cosmos

The estate, owned by the Paravicini Crespi family for over a century, was converted from a hunting reserve to biodynamic agricultural production starting in the 1970s. It was one of the first farms in Italy to do so, in accordance with the wishes of Giulia Maria Crespi, the noted entrepreneur and founder of Fai, Fondo ambiente italiano.

Today it is his grandson, Marco Paravicini Crespi, who runs the farm with the same conviction as his grandmother. We meet him at the farmstead and the first question can only be one: "Do you really make the horn manure?" "Of course," he replies, "and it really works!"

"It's perfectly reasonable not to believe in it," he continues, "but I wonder why some people are so opposed to biodynamic agriculture. They tell us our practices have no scientific basis, yet there are studies confirming that soil quality and its ability to retain water increase exponentially with biodynamic agriculture. The real questions we should be asking, as far as I'm concerned, are quite different: let's ask ourselves, for example, what the effects of industrial sludge on farmland are, or what the consequences of intensive agriculture are for biodiversity and groundwater."

Horn manure, like other similar practices, is just one aspect of biodynamic agriculture — which formally came into being in 1924, drawing inspiration from the vision of philosopher Rudolf Steiner in response to the emerging problems of chemical agriculture — and is grounded in a holistic conception of the farm, a farm in relationship with its surrounding environment, with the Earth and with the cosmos.

"Together with organic agriculture, biodynamic agriculture is the only farming practice to have a detailed set of regulations and very rigorous certifications (Cascine Orsine is a member of Demeter Italia, ed.) that offer a guarantee to the consumer," explains Marco. "The biodynamic method has precise rules, but in applying them it also takes into account the specificities of the farm's territory — its climate, environment and morphology. In short, we work with nature, we try to understand how it works and go along with it, whereas in the majority of cases natural factors are ignored or worked against. This doesn't mean ruling out technology, but ensuring that the natural component and the technological one go hand in hand. Far from being sorcery, biodynamic farms in many cases — wine is a good example — represent the excellence of Italian agricultural production."

The balance between farming and livestock rearing for a closed-loop (and sustainable) operation

The Cascine Orsine estate extends across the heart of the Parco del Ticino for more than 650 hectares, of which 350 are under cultivation, while the remainder is left as woodland. The core of the farm's production is rice, in the Rosa Marchetti and Baldo varieties, and cheeses, made at "zero kilometres" in the on-site dairy using the milk of cattle reared in the barn (around 300) and fed primarily on fodder grown on the farm. There are also other small-scale products, derived from the farm's ecosystem, such as minor cereals, flours and honey.

"The fundamental aspect for us is maintaining a balance within the farm between agriculture and livestock rearing, being self-sufficient by minimising inputs and waste, and creating a closed, virtuous cycle. A proportionate livestock operation creates no problems; the problems arise when numbers explode. Here, for example, the cows keep their horns because the density is not high relative to the available space, and the manure they produce is not a polluting waste — as it is in intensive farming operations — but becomes a resource for fertilising the land. At the same time, the need to feed the animals primarily on self-produced fodder, as required by the Demeter regulations, naturally leads to a very broad crop rotation: in this way we maintain soil health and on-farm biodiversity, which also encourages the presence of bees, kept in various hives scattered across the estate. It's an agroecological approach — the same one the European Union is pushing towards, also incentivising grazing with financial subsidies, for example."

Cascine Orsine: the challenge of grazing on the plain (and of a biodynamic agriturismo)

Creating a grazing area on the plain that allows the animals, in addition to moving outdoors as they already do, to also feed themselves — that is precisely the challenge the farm is working on: "In fact, we are implementing a rotational grazing system, which is highly innovative for this area, where the animals graze on a different section of land each day, thus giving the meadow time to regrow and always ensuring fresh forage for the cows, which will make up a good part of their daily ration. This will further improve both animal welfare and the quality of the milk, and therefore of our cheeses: eating fresh forage transfers the scents of the grasses and flowers of the pastures into the final product, varying according to the season."

In truth, the pasture is not Marco's only project: Cascine Orsine will soon also have an agriturismo where guests will be able to enjoy a sustainable menu made with the farm's own produce — whose doors, like those of other biodynamic operations, Marco repeatedly emphasises, are always wide open to anyone who wants to discover it and learn more.