Decanter World Wine AwardsBiodynamics should be promoted, debate audience decides
- Friday 2 December 2011
- Comments (16)
Organic viticulture: 'shutting the farm gate'
Viticulturalist Richard Smart and biodynamic winemaker Monty Waldin went head-to-head at the Wine and Spirit Education Trust headquarters – Waldin supporting the motion and Smart opposing it.
Waldin made clear that he was not suggesting organic or biodynamic viticulture should be compulsory – ‘you should wear a seat belt not because the state tells you to but because it’s safer.’
Organic and biodynamic grape growing ‘needn’t be voodoo and black magic’, as Smart had earlier suggested, but was simply the process of ‘shutting the farm gate’, that is, making your operation as self-sufficient as possible.
It is far better to produce your own manure from your own livestock, for example, than to ‘raise an invoice for a sack of fertiliser that needs to be delivered by truck.’
He pointed out the inconsistencies in the scientific approach to viticulture: if science had all the answers, why could it not explain why horn manure or BD500, a preparation made from fermented cow dung, had been proved on analysis to contain more beneficial microbes than conventional manure?
Richard Smart, who stressed that he was an environmentalist, said he didn’t care if growers were organic or biodynamic, ‘but I do care if they disadvantage others who are equally earnest in their care for the environment.’
He said his argument had always been that carbon dioxide was the greatest danger to the environment, and organic or biodynamic farming did nothing to address that.
Making the case that the organic and biodynamic lobby was driven by ‘PR and misconception’ and ‘emotive’ he said many conventional farmers were ‘too frightened to stick their heads above the parapet for fear it would affect sales’.
He used the example of biodynamic vineyards he had seen in Martinborough that were ‘suffering nitrogen and water deficiency’ – an argument countered by Waldin, who pointed out ‘over-irrigation is a worldwide problem’.
Smart also pointed out inconsistencies: copper is ‘the most toxic thing you can put on a vineyard’, he said, yet it is permitted in organic viticulture.
Similarly, he drew on a University of California, Berkeley report that found people eat 1.5g of pesticide daily, but only 0.1mg of that is synthetic – the rest is naturally-occurring.
The audience, which included Gerard Basset MW, natural wines expert Isabelle Legeron MW, David Cox of Wines of New Zealand and other highly-qualified members of the UK trade, questioned both speakers closely, demanding of Smart why he considered the concept that soils could be dead or living ‘emotive’.
He countered that such terms were not rigorous and would not be used by a soil microbiologist.
The motion was carried, with 75% of the audience voting for, and a handful against.
Have your say!
Monty Waldin
December 05 18:54
Again at Chris Coffey
You say "In Richard Smart's defence, I don't remember him calling anything "voodoo" or "black magic" - they were Monty's words."
No they weren't - they were Richard's in an article published by one of Decanter's rivals in preparation for the debate. Never let the facts stand in the way of...
Monty Waldin
December 05 18:40
At Chris Coffey
My point about over-irrigation was linked to water stress - not to nitrogen. This was quite clear.
Nick Nakorn
December 05 15:10
Within 'agribusiness' and within 'organic' agriculture there are methods that work well and not so well; there are environmental impacts we might like and ones we might think damaging. But there is either some kind of scientific evidence for the efficacy of the traits of each method (and all the methods in between) or there is not. To promote Biodynamics as if it holds some special place (safe like seatbelt?) in the science of agriculture is thus a con trick of which we should all be wary. No technology can be the answer gto everything. But the best rewason for opposing Biodynamics is not that it is based largely on woo and new-age Public Relations (it is) but it is based upon a completely mad racist hierarchy of re-incarnation in which white Europeans are thought to be at the top and black aboriginies at the bottom. The only lower state according to Steiner, for the human soul, is to be turned into a goblin that tends the roots of plants in Biodynamic agriculture. I kid you not. The people in charge of Waldorf/Steiner/Biodynamics refuse to give up these beliefs. Beliefs that underpinned biodynamic experiments by Demeter using slave labour in the Nazi death camps during WW2. So chosse to promote these lunatics if you must, but be aware that you are supporting a bunch of mystic fascists, not sane horticulturalists. If you check these facts you'll find them to be correct.
Monty Waldin
December 05 12:01
To Rodger Tynan
Biodynamics does not teach soil cultivation per se but does say that if you are going to cultuvate you must make sure you put more back into the soil than you took out by cultivating via cover crops and compost from your own livestock.
You will find most bio growers are reducing or eliminating cultivation via cover cropping/permanent swards, at least for every other vine row.
The traditional argument against doing this (leaving weeds/cover crops in situ) was made by those selling soluble fertilizers and weedkillers. They argued that leaving weeds/cover crops in place would reduce yields and that weedkillers/fertilizers would enhance them. This works for a while until the humus-forming capaciacty of the soil is weakened/lost because fertilizers/weedkillers destoy N-fixing soil microbes.
Ideally once vineyards come back into balance one can adopt a more permacultural system (permanent grassing) which animals can graze on (in the vines) and fertilize.
You can't switch from weedkillers/fertilizers to a full, permanent (organic/biodynamic) sward overnight otherwise you'll stress/kill the vines; but long term it makes sense for wine quality and the wider environment.
Monty