BETSY GAMELA TALKS TO TROY BERNARDO ABOUT TRANSFORMING THE WAY PEOPLE FARM AND HARVESTING CROPS THAT NOURISH BODY AND SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY BY KHALIL GAMELA
This has got to be the best yoghurt in the world,” exclaims Karen Villanueva, 36, a Filipino-American tourist from Nevada, as she relishes her cup of freshly made yogurt inside the Bios Dynamis store. Her constant gushing increases with every thick slurp, throwing her friends into a little frenzy over what to try next: unflavored or honey-flavored? A couple of street kids wander into the store, put their seven pesos on the counter, and choose from among four frozen milk bars: mango, chocolate, durian and pure fresh milk. In the sleepy city of Kidapawan, North Cotabato – a two-hour van ride away from Davao City – even the poor have access to enjoying organic, biodynamic food.
Thanks to the Don Bosco Foundation for Sustainable Development, Inc. (DBFSDI), rural communities in North and South Cotabato as well as Davao del Sur have already begun to change their eating habits. At the forefront of the crusade is Betsy Gamela, one of DBFSDI’s founders and frontrunners.
“If you eat a salad that’s grown from land that’s saturated with chemicals, these same chemicals enter your bloodstream,” she explains. “To be healthy, it isn’t enough to eat vegetables. They have to be organically grown to ensure that unnecessary toxins are not introduced into your system. Imagine, if you have leafy greens soaked in pesticides for lunch everyday, it’s like you’re drinking a cup of chemical soup on a daily basis. We can’t even imagine the damage that can do to our bodies. People in the cities don’t seem to know this. But in North Cotabato, even the tricycle drivers buy organic.”
DETOXING THE SOIL
It wasn’t always like this. When Betsy and a group of idealists decided to go into agriculture, many of the farmers were using pesticides, chemicals and synthetic fertilizers that poisoned not only the land, but also people’s bodies. They started DBFSDI in 1990 to change this and to promote sustainable agriculture and development in the Mindanao region. The group was formally established in 1994. Betsy and company got busy introducing a radical change in farming habits: from conventional agricultural practices, they taught farmers a more holistic, socially and environmentally responsible approach. Their secret: the applied science of biodynamics.
Biodynamics can be traced to lectures by the founder of anthroposophy, Dr.Rudolf Steiner. In 1924, farmers in Koberwitz, Germany brought up concerns about the decline of soil quality. Steiner helped develop “a unified approach to agriculture that relates the ecology of the earth-organism to that of the entire cosmos.” It’s a method that treats and respects the soil and the farm as living organisms, ensuring their maintenance and preservation as top priority. “Your farm can only achieve a kind of individuality that progresses and evolves if it keeps its soil in excellent shape,” says Betsy, likening it to human beings who need to do inner work to nurture the soul. “That’s when we focus on having a healthy mind, body and spirit. You can’t have one without the other.” This delicate balance is exactly what Mindanao’s biodynamic farmers are achieving and with remarkable results. The universe that is in their hearts is the same universe that is in their farm, which is the same one that exists around all of mankind. This means that a farmer’s mood can affect what he harvests. Betsy will not go out on the field feeling angry because her rage can affect her crops, which can be transferred to the people who eventually eat her produce. She can only plant, harvest and work in a state of harmony, love and gratitude. How she is feeling within is just as important as the actual farming.
Having organic, biodynamically-grown produce prepares people’s bodies to be receptive to more spiritual pursuits. Toxins and poisons, on the other hand, prevent this from happening, forming blocks. “I can’t believe it’s that simple, but it is,” says LJ Pineda, whose cigarette cravings vanished when she began having biodynamic food. “Cleaning up the body allows one to focus on the spirit,” says Betsy’s son, Khalil, 18, who grew up on biodynamic food. “This is why people go into yoga, meditation and even exercise, as well as acupuncture and other forms of healing – to help purge the body of blocks, which open up pathways to the spirit.”
A banana, for example, stays in your body for only three hours. In that time, its nutrients are absorbed. Meat, on the other hand, can ferment in your body for up to three days, affecting your stress levels, sleeping habits, weight, skin, and cause other unnecessary conditions. Imagine what fast food, French fries, and junk food can do.
TEACHING FARMERS THE WAY
Today, Betsy and her team run a compound in Makilala, North Cotabato where they teach farmers everything from anthroposophy, Dr. Masaru Emoto’s studies on water, AgniHotra, the Indian sacred fire rituals, the laws of attraction in The Secret and Kalipimu, an ancient healing ritual. As more city folk discover the benefits of eating right, thousands of farmers in Mindanao continue to sow and reap according to planetary placement, replenishing the soil with compost and organic biodynamic preparations and enriching both soil and soul, so as to bring what is sacred to our tables.
For information on the DBFSDI, biodynamic farming seminars, and sacred retreats, click on the site, www.bios-dynamis.org, email biocracy_db@yahoo.com or call +63 (64) 288 5586. For inquiries on Kalipimu and spiritual retreats, email troybernardo@gmail.com
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