Demeter (cultivation association)

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Demeter
logo
legal form registered association
founding 1924
Seat Darmstadt , GermanyGermanyGermany 
Chair Dr. Alexander Gerber, Johannes Kamps-Bender
Managing directors Dr. Alexander Gerber, Johannes Kamps-Bender
Website www.demeter.de

Demeter is a German organic cultivation association , whose name was protected in Munich in 1932 for bio-dynamic products. The biodynamic economy practiced by Demeter members since 1924 is based on the agricultural concepts and the spiritual-esoteric worldview of Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy . The Demeter Economic Association was established as early as 1930 as the successor organization to a collecting cooperative founded by anthroposophical farmers in 1927. The Demeter-Bund eV holds the rights to the brand name Demeter Demeter's product range includes more than 3500 groceries as well as cosmetics and fashion items, which are mainly sold in organic stores and health food stores , but for some time now also at supermarket chains such as Kaufland and Globus .

The name is derived from the Greek mother and fertility goddess Demeter .

history

Founding of the collecting cooperative and sales company

In 1927, farmers who work according to anthroposophical ideas founded the “Demeter” collecting society (later: Demeter-Wirtschaftsbund eV). From January 1930 the magazine Demeter - monthly magazine for biodynamic farming methods - was published instead of the initial internal circular . Her editors were Erhard Bartsch and Franz Dreidax, close companions of Rudolf Steiner. From July 1933 Bartsch was the sole editor.

time of the nationalsocialism

Erhard Bartsch and Franz Dreidax set themselves the task of systematically educating the highest government and NSDAP party circles about the theoretical and practical aspects of the biodynamic economy. Representatives of the party and government were also invited to inspect various biodynamic farmed goods and to the winter meetings of the Reichsbund for biodynamic farming at Bartsch's farm in Bad Saarow . After the favor and intercession of Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess had been achieved, the delivery of Demeter vegetables to the Rudolf Hess hospital was also started.

In 1937 Bartsch stated that "the leading men of the Demeter movement made their knowledge and experience available to National Socialist Germany without reservation ."

In May 1937, the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture prepared an ordinance to ban the cultivation of Demeter grain. To avert the ban, Fritz Todts ' agricultural advisor , Alwin Seifert , wrote a detailed letter to Hess to promote the bio-dynamic working method. The Reichsnährstand entrusted with the case handed the matter over to the Landwirtschaftliche Betriebsprüfung GmbH (LBP) in Berlin, whose scientifically written investigation method Hess was criticized by Seifert and Benno von Heynitz as being partisan and biased. Thereupon, in 1939, Hess arranged for a second inspection by experts from the Schutzstaffel (SS). The representatives of the biodynamic farms were able to prove that the LPD experts had only estimated the harvest results, but that the real yields were 50% higher. This result convinced the Reichsnährstand and the Reichsnutrition ministry, and the planned ban on growing Demeter grain was waived.

Subsequently, the Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture issued a declaration, which Bartsch published in Demeter in January 1940 , in which it was declared, also on behalf of Hess, that it was agreed in the summer of 1938 that all propaganda for or against the use of the Biodynamic fertilization and advertising for the same should be omitted, but the head of the Biology and Agriculture Department, Konrad Meyer , has vigorously contradicted this agreement and opposes the biodynamic way of working.

Because of the beginning of the war, this dispute should be settled at the behest of Hess. On June 18, 1940 Bartsch finally succeeded, among other things, in persuading Agriculture Minister Walther Darré to visit his Demeter farm, who was impressed.

The magazine Demeter hailed the military victories of the Wehrmacht in the first years of the Second World War and praised the Führer in an editorial from September 1940 as follows: “That should be our goal and our high task, together with our Führer Adolf Hitler for the liberation of ours love to fight the German fatherland! "

The partial endorsement of the biodynamic economy by the Nazis was not based on the content of the anthroposophical philosophy, but on the supposed "originality" of agricultural practice.

In addition to the cooperation between anthroposophists and the SS, which has existed since 1939, to set up a biodynamically managed teaching material on an expropriated farm in Poznan , cooperation with Himmler's approval and supported by the head of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office , Oswald Pohl , and Günther Pancke was able to participate in various Projects after the Demeter ban in 1941 will be continued. The biodynamic farms now belonging to the SS continued to be run until the end of the war, and the anthroposophist and SS officer Franz Lippert supervised the biodynamic farm at the Dachau concentration camp . The head of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office , Günther Pancke, considered the biodynamic agriculture in the management of the so-called habitat in the east to be the only useful economic method "for the future military farmers and farmers in the east".

In the campaign against secret doctrine and so-called secret sciences in 1941, all German biodynamic organizations and the monthly Demeter magazine were banned by the security service (SD) and the police . The experimental ring then acted covertly. Despite these difficult circumstances, the biodynamic economy could be further developed.

After 1945

After the Second World War there was a shortage of leaders in the Demeter economy. The biodynamic cultivation was banned in the now socialist countries in eastern Germany. In West Germany, the Research Ring for Biological-Dynamic Economy was founded in 1946 as the successor to the Versuchsring . He is the owner of the Demeter trademark. Farmers, scientists and consultants work together there. This committee is also entrusted with drawing up the guidelines for the production and marketing of Demeter products. The association's own journal Lebendige Erde has been published since 1950 .

In 1954 the Demeter Association was constituted . The Demeter-Bund is entitled to grant contracting companies the right to use the trademark in the form of protection agreements. The prerequisite for this is a two-year biodynamic economy.

As the first organic farming association in Germany, Demeter issued guidelines for the processing of food in 1994 and restructured itself at the same time. There was a task-related threefold social structure based on Steiner according to intellectual, legal and economic life. The overriding leitmotifs were the aspects of regionalization and subsidiarity .

In 1997, 19 world independent Demeter organizations the club Demeter International eV The aim of this association is to standardize bio-dynamic farming worldwide. He also strives to align the quality assurance processes of the products produced.

Since the 2000s, a Demeter association was founded in Poland on the initiative of Joachim Bauck .

In 2007, the individual Demeter forums founded the first joint association Demeter eV

In 2002 Demeter added to his statutes that membership in racist organizations as well as cooperation with such are incompatible with the aims of the association.

Starting points from the history of ideas

The model and concept of biodynamic agriculture emerged in the early 1920s and was founded clairvoyantly by Rudolf Steiner . It is based on Steiner's approach of a "spiritually-dynamically oriented chemistry", which is based on a holistic view of natural influences on the growth of the plant.

The lecture series ( Agricultural Course ) presented this approach in eight parts. In addition to minerals , humus formation , flora and fauna, she also treated the influence of star constellations as an essential factor and saw the effect of cosmic forces as the basis for practical farming. Steiner prescribed organic land use without the use of chemicals. He emphasized the importance of crop rotation and composting in maintaining the fertility of the soil. The position of the moon should also be taken into account when choosing the sowing days . To communicate with the forces of nature, people sometimes resorted to unconventional methods, for example, one believed that they could intercept cosmic rays by filling cow horns with cow dung and burying them in the earth. This specifically anthroposophical form of fertilizer processing in cow horns was of particular importance to Steiner. In the context of the fourth lecture in June 1924 in Koberwitz, which dealt with the question of fertilization, he described this method as follows: ... If you stuff quartz, pebbles or feldspar into a cow horn and for a winter “three quarters to one and a half meters deep “, Then there is“ a tremendous power in the astral and the ethereal ”. If you stir the contents of the horn in half a bucket of water for an hour in the spring, you get a sprayable herbal remedy with a pin-sized piece of it that you put in a bucket of water.

Demeter agriculture understands the farm as a form of living and individual organism, which is also influenced by non-material influences. These influences are understood as dynamic. In practice, this means the use of biodynamic preparations that are viewed as remedies for the earth. There are compost and spray preparations. They are produced by the defined preparation of special medicinal herbs , quartz or horn manure , which are added to the fertilizer in small amounts or used when planting.

Quality assurance and dissemination

In order to recognize Demeter quality, a two-year cultivation according to the biodynamic farming method is required. The producer of Demeter products has to confirm with his signature at the annual harvest registration that he has complied with the cultivation rules. The Demeter quality is then recognized by a representative of the Demeter research ring for biodynamic agriculture . The quality control office of the research ring carries out random quality controls.

Demeter is represented in around 60 countries. In 2018, Demeter guidelines were used on 1579 farms in Germany, 231 farms in Austria and 297 in Switzerland. The Marienhöhe farm, taken over by the farmer Erhard Bartsch on January 1, 1928, developed into a model farm and center of the Demeter movement in the 1930s. The farm Ökodorf Brodowin in Brodowin , in the Barnim district , which emerged from an LPG , is the largest Demeter company in Germany with 1200 hectares.

Own organic seal and association requirements

Demeter is one of the cultivation associations that use an association-specific organic seal - the Demeter logo - in addition to the EC organic regulation and the German state organic seal , the requirements of which are higher than those of the EC organic regulation and the German state organic Seal go out. It may only be used by contractual partners who adhere to the guidelines of the Demeter Association during the entire cultivation and processing process.

For example, only 13 food additives are permitted, the dehorning of cattle is prohibited, and the transport route of the animals to the slaughterhouse is limited to a maximum of 200 kilometers. Contrary to the guidelines, Demeter still has companies that keep genetically polled cattle. All animals may only be fed with organic feed, whereby at least 80% of the feed ration for ruminants and at least 50% of the total feed requirement must be Demeter quality and 50% of this must come from our own farm. The keeping of roughage eaters is obligatory - with the exception of horticulture and permanent cultivation companies, experimental or research companies - whereby a forage / manure cooperation with another organic company, which has to be approved by the association, can be concluded. In the case of animal diseases, biological, anthroposophic, homeopathic and other natural healing methods are preferred. In biodynamic seed breeding, the reproduction and breeding of hybrid seeds (F1) is not permitted. Except for maize, no hybrid varieties are permitted in cereal cultivation. The cultivation of varieties that have been bred using cell fusion techniques is generally not permitted. From January 1, 2020, with a transition period of two years, fresh fruit and vegetables may no longer be offered in plastic packaging .

After a bad harvest in 2007, for the first time in the history of the association, processing companies were allowed a short-term admixture of up to 30 percent grain that was not produced in a biodynamic manner but complied with the EC organic regulation.

Demeter association logo

The Demeter logo has been used since 1928. In 1932 the term Demeter was registered with the Munich Patent Office as a trademark for biodynamic products . In 1954 the Demeter Association received the trademark rights .

marketing

In the 1930s, bio-dynamic Demeter products were sold through health food stores . During the time of National Socialism , Demeter products were marketed by the German Research Institute for Nutrition and Catering , which also cooperated with Weleda .

The market share of Demeter in organic products was in early 2004 between seven and eight per cent with an annual turnover of 200 million euros. The focus here is particularly on direct marketing and the organic food trade.

Since autumn 2016, the products have also been sold in Switzerland by traditional food retailers .

Competing cultivation associations

With Naturland and Bioland, Demeter is one of the oldest private organic associations in Germany. After Bioland and Naturland, Demeter is the third largest association in Germany in terms of membership. In terms of area, the Demeter farms in Germany took fourth place with 93,002 hectares at the beginning of January 2020. In August 2020 Demeter had 1,700 members, Bioland 8,100 members and Naturland 4,000 members in Germany and 70,000 worldwide. Demeter maintains the strictest guidelines.

criticism

In 2018 Demeter received the negative award The golden board in front of the head in the "Lifetime Achievement" category. The reasoning says: Whoever buys Demeter products often thinks that they are doing something good for the environment - in truth, it promotes a pre-scientific-magical view of the world with questionable rituals, arbitrarily invented by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner.

See also

Web links

Commons : Demeter  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Imprint | Demeter eV Accessed July 7, 2020 .
  2. ^ Helmut Zander: Anthroposophy in Germany. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, p. 1599f, p. 1586ff.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Sabine Dietzig -schicht: Organic farmers today: Agriculture in the Black Forest between tradition and modernity. (= International university publications). Verlag Waxmann, 2016, ISBN 978-3-8309-3440-0 , p. 57ff.
  4. ↑ a b biodynamic from the start
  5. ↑ Gunter Vogt: History of organic farming in German-speaking countries - Part I. In: Ecology & farming . 119, March 2001, p. 47.
  6. ↑ a b Uwe Werner: Anthroposophists in the time of National Socialism (1933-1945). Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag , Munich 1999, p. 82.
  7. ↑ Uwe Werner: Anthroposophists in the time of National Socialism . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 1999, p. 87.
  8. ↑ Peter Staudenmaier: The German Spirit at the Crossroads: Anthroposophists in Confrontation with Völkischer Movement and National Socialism . In: Uwe Puschner : The ethnic-religious movement under National Socialism: a history of relationships and conflicts. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, p. 489.
  9. ↑ Uwe Werner: Anthroposophists in the time of National Socialism . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 1999, p. 268, p. 270-272.
  10. ↑ Peter Staudenmaier: The German Spirit at the Crossroads: Anthroposophists in Confrontation with Völkischer Movement and National Socialism. In: Uwe Puschner: The ethnic-religious movement under National Socialism: a history of relationships and conflicts. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, p. 484.
  11. ↑ Peter Staudenmaier: The German Spirit at the Crossroads: Anthroposophists in Confrontation with Völkischer Movement and National Socialism. In: Uwe Puschner, Clemens Vollnhals (eds.): The ethnic-religious movement in National Socialism: a history of relationships and conflicts. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-525-36996-8 , p. 489f.
  12. ↑ Gunter Vogt: Origin and development of organic farming. Dissertation . Publishers Ecological Concepts, Bad Dürkheim 2000, ISBN 3-934499-21-X .
  13. ↑ Sabine Dietzig layer: organic farmers today: Agriculture in the Black Forest between tradition and modernity. (= International university publications). Verlag Waxmann, 2016, ISBN 978-3-8309-3440-0 , p. 58.
  14. ↑ a b c d Müfit Bahadir, H. Parlar (Ed.): Springer Umweltlexikon. Springer-Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-642-62954-9 , p. 299.
  15. ↑ Agra-Europe (AgE), Volume 50, No. 26 from June 22, 2009
  16. ^ Rahel Uhlenhoff: Anthroposophy in the past and present . Bwv - Berlin science publisher; 1st edition, October 2011, p. 738, ISBN 978-3-8305-1930-0
  17. ^ Helmut Zander : Anthroposophy in Germany. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, p. 1579ff, p. 1587, p. 1599.
  18. ↑ Leonore Scholze-Irrlitz (Ed.): Aufbruch im Umbruch The village of Brodowin between ecology and economy. (= Berliner Blätter: Ethnographic and ethnological contributions. Volume 40). LIT Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-8258-0005-9 , p. 59.
  19. ↑ a b Leonore Scholze-Irrlitz (Ed.): Departure in upheaval The village of Brodowin between ecology and economy. (= Berliner Blätter: Ethnographic and ethnological contributions. Volume 40). LIT Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-8258-0005-9 , pp. 59ff.
  20. ^ Joachim Radkau , Frank Uekötter : Nature protection and National Socialism. Campus Verlag, 2003, pp. 260f.
  21. ↑ Fourth Lecture Koberwitz , Forces and Substances that enter the Spiritual: The Question of Fertilization on June 12, 1924.
  22. ^ Helmut Zander: Anthroposophy in Germany. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, p. 1579ff, p. 1587, p. 1588.
  23. ↑ Statistics Certified Demeter operations in member countries of Demeter-International (DI) , 6/2019
  24. ↑ Manfred Feder: Hiking in the Schorfheide: Tours through an unusual landscape. Trescher Verlag 2005. p. 146.
  25. ↑ New EG-ÖKO regulation (EG) No. 834/2007 Publisher: IFOAM EU Group; Bio-Siegel in Europa reformhaus.de, March 21, 2016; Bio-Siegel comparison. What is the difference between organic and organic? Biobranchenbuch.info
  26. ↑ Bio-Siegel in comparison. What the different eco-labels say. Focus-online, February 18, 2013.
  27. ↑ Felix Frieler: Which organic seals can still be trusted. In: The world . February 26, 2013.
  28. ↑ Maurin Jost: Organic Association bypasses its own guidelines: horn requirement for cattle softened. In: taz.de . July 15, 2019, accessed July 21, 2019 .
  29. ↑ Sarah Wiener: Future menu: Why we can only save the world with pleasure . Riemann-Verlag 2013, ISBN 978-3-570-50150-4 (no page number)
  30. ↑ Demeter : General guidelines, p. 46.
  31. ↑ Demeter : General guidelines, p. 45.
  32. ↑ Demeter : General guidelines, p. 45 u. 57.
  33. ↑ Christoph Willers: CSR and the food industry: Sustainable management along the food value chain , Springer-Verlag, 2016, ISBN 978-3662470152 , page 245
  34. ↑ Demeter: In future without plastic packaging. In: Lebensmittelpraxis.de. April 18, 2019, accessed April 28, 2019 .
  35. ↑ Demeter allows up to 30% organic in taz from April 12, 2008, accessed on January 17, 2017
  36. ↑ A bad grain harvest forces exceptions. ( Memento from June 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  37. ^ Helmut Zander: Anthroposophy in Germany. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, p. 1600.
  38. ^ Peter Staudenmaier: Between Occultism and Nazism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race in the Fascist Era (Aries Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism). Brill Academic Pub, 2014, pp. 141f.
  39. ^ Helmut Zander: Anthroposophy in Germany. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, p. 1607.
  40. ↑ Demeter: Marketing
  41. ↑ Sina Trinkwalder : Fairarscht: How Business and Trade Sale customers are stupid. 1st edition. Knaur, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-426-78794-6 . What is organic section
  42. ↑ BÖLW: Industry report 2020 (PDF; 7.9 MB) Organic food industry. In: boelw.de . February 2020, p. 12 , accessed on February 25, 2020 .
  43. ↑ These are the most important food seals for an environmentally conscious diet. Klimawiese, August 10, 2020, accessed on August 10, 2020 .
  44. ↑ The “Golden Board” for the “North Hospital Affair”. In: Golden Board. Retrieved November 29, 2018 .