Estançia Demetria in Botucatu
Brazil: Estançia Demetria is a bio-dynamic farm just outside of Botucatu, being cultivated since 1973/74. On the huge premises of the initiative and close by, further anthroposophical institutions came in to being, like the social-therapeutic association Espaço São Micael and a little further away the Waldorf School of Aitiara, giving an educational environment to 350 students.
It was the executive board of an office-chair factory from São Paulo which bought the land in the 1970’s. It was then, that a group of young people started to cultivate the land bio-dynamically. The beginning of the farm seems normal, leaving no suspicion to the fact that Estançia Demetria was actually a very daring attempt and its success was everything but predictable.
The purchased land had been leached out, due to monocultures and chemical fertilizer and the last tree had been cut down years ago. Altogether one could have compared this bit of earth with a veldt rather than agricultural ground. The project aroused attention. Experts came to see the land and judge its fertility, leaving with the conclusion: any effort is pointless.
Nevertheless the young people were not mislead by this and started their work, thus turning Estançia Demetria into the fertile farm it is today. Let us focus on the meadows and barns. As we do so, we find a multitude of milk-cows, buffaloes, pigs and horses. Additionally various Gardens for vegetables, herbs and tee varieties bring profitable harvest. Not to forget is the fact that a lot of trees grow on the farm land. A lot of them are fruit trees from which the exotic fruits can be sold freshly or processed.
Let us move on now and focus on the market; in order to observe what all is being produced out of the harvest. For one there is yoghurt, cream, curd-cheese and various kinds of cheese for sale in the cheese-dairy, marmalade and various ice cream flavours are results of the fruit processing and furthermore there is a large selection of all kinds of bread in the farm’s own bakery, not to forget the fresh vegetables and fruits, tee varieties and herbs being produced by the farm. All of this is being sold at two bio-markets in São Paulo. For this purpose co-workers of the farm have to start their journey at half past midnight in order to cover the distance of 250km to the city before 4 am.
The fact that the ground finally turned out to be fertile was only achieved after years and years of intensive work with the soil. The profit of the first harvest was given to the families of São Paulo Waldorf School and not much later Brazil’s first bio-shop was opened.
Founding the Waldorf School in Botucatu meant that more and more families moved onto the premises of Estançia Demetria over the course of time. Who would have ever thought that on this land, one day, there would not only be a farm and a social-therapeutic institution with it’s workshops but also doctors, a bio-shop, a café, a pizza-restaurant and so on and so on?
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