Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 03:02:54 -0500 Reply-To: Sustainable Agriculture Network Discussion Group Sender: Sustainable Agriculture Network Discussion Group From: Hugh Lovel Subject: Victor Returns: Article from Spiritual Comments: To: bdnow@envirolink.org, hgrotzke@capecod.net, Demeter@baldcom.net, srcosmos@interx.net, spfood@aol.com, sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear List, Just a few words on this topic before I take off for Japan. Roughly 25 years ago I told Heinz Grotzke, then President of the BD Association, that sooner or later we would have to go beyond--outgrow--the term biodynamic. After all, what we were REALLY about was good farming. Period. All the "conventional" and "organic" stuff simply would be inferior to that grown by the best application of the insights underlying BD and if we truly made this superiority known to the public we would be seen as the true farmers, the good farmers, the REAL farmers and the others would be seen as buffoons who needed some kind of name (chemical, conventional, organic, etc.). We would be Farmers with a capital letter. Personally I'm deeply offended by Annie Mendenhall being so insensitive that she excommunicated one of the topmost practitioners of the biodynamic art of farming. I wrote her and told her she really ought to excommunicate me next. That's truly how I felt and how short-sighted I see her action of denying Greg Willis the luxury of advertising HER trademark. I don't see where Annie or the Demeter organization as a whole has done much to make biodynamic a household word, although that unquestionably would be the best way to protect the term. Just the contrary has occurred. I'm puzzled she doesn't see excommunicating Victor as equivalent to murdering her closest kin. It is all SO incredibly wrong I surely will have nothing further to do with the American branch of Demeter as long as she represents it. With the term "organic" being co-opted by the USDA and the term "biodynamic" similarly co-opted by a BD stalwart who cuts off her nose to spite her face I'm left to consider whether the day has not indeed come that I forecast to Heinz 25 years ago. Demeter has never done anything for me. I can't quite say the same for the BDA. But I don't have much enthusiasm for telling people I'm a BD farmer when I think of some of the company this puts me in. Supposedly Greg is sending me the mailing lists and mock-ups for the ABA Newsletter. I'll see about picking up the threads of this where he left off. I CAN get a newsletter out, as I grew up in the publishing trade. At least the first issue will appear. Will I hear that I am excommunicated, and will I hear it from Annie Mendenhall that the American Biodynamic Association cannot use the term biodynamic? We'll see. There may very well be no biodynamic movement as such beyond the year 2001 if, indeed, Annie shoots her wad on this one. For sure a copy of this post is going to Annie, from whom I still hope to hear apologies and a statement of resignation from Demeter and the BDA board. And to Heinz, whom I respect enormously. And to Greg and Victor who were excommunicated. If Demeter were to protect the word "biodynamic" they might have worked toward making it known in every household as a symbol of quality. Instead Demeter's energy has gone into internecine strife. Annie, don't you WANT to lay aside the mantle and scepter and experience light and freedom again? It would be nice to go back to liking you and being glad to see you. Remember the time you wrote me about my parsnip seed? The greatest irony is that people like myself, Allan, Victor, Greg, etc. who protested Annie's descent into hell stand accused (by a vocal minority) of trying to destroy the very movement and nomenclature we've sought to rescue. Someone said a year or so ago, "Do something good and the bells in hell are sure to sound the alarm." Seems like they knew what they were talking about. For now, 'Nuff said, Hugh Lovel