I recently had an opportunity to visit a fledgling, yet remarkably successful, Waldorf School and biodynamic farm in Pokhara, Nepal. Biodynamic farming is founded on the principle that bringing vitality to the soil causes plants to thrive and nourishes people and animals living on the land. Rudolf Steiner, the inspiration behind Waldorf education, believed that biodynamic farming would benefit students not simply with healthful food, but also by cultivating in them the experience of being stewards for this precious Earth.
Garnering the resources needed to start and sustain the venture required ingenuity. With a GDP per capita of scarcely $750 per year, Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. Few families are in a position to pay for food and shelter, let along education. Ritman Gurung, co-founder of the school and farm, learned about Waldorf education while studying economics at Tribhuvan College in Nepal. A native of Pokhara, he knew that it would be difficult to sustain the school if they depended on tuition alone.
With a donation of land, family support and bank loans, the team was then able to start the farm and construct buildings for the school. Today the facility has 15 kindergarten students ages 3 to 5, and a productive farm with vegetables and fruit trees. There are also several cows that produce milk, some of which is used to make feta cheese. The farm now produces almost enough food not only to feed the children and staff, but also to subsidize the school by bringing some of the bounty to market.
Because of limited funding, it isn’t feasible to send the school’s five teacher-farmers abroad for continuing education. Instead, the team invites experts to come to Nepal to teach at the farm. Most recently, Van James and Bonnie Ozaki-James, teachers at the Honolulu Waldorf School, traveled to Nepal to work with the teacher-farmers.
The integrated Pokhara Waldorf School and biodynamic farm are a beacon of light in this war-torn state. For decades Nepal has struggled as a pawn between its two mighty neighbors on either side of the Himalayas. The 28 million people of this nation suffer from daily electrical brownouts, inadequate water supplies and shortages of gas for cooking and gasoline for transportation. The air in Kathmandu is increasingly toxic, while much of the arable land is filled with pesticides and depleted of nutrients.
Biodynamic farming strives to nourish the soil with manure and compost rather than exploit it.
The natural resources of our blue planet continue to be under immense stress. Informed by science and guided by a sense of personal responsibility, we must forge a more intimate, functional and integrated relationship with the world around us.
This intention is embodied by Waldorf education and biodynamic farming.
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Ira Zunin, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., is medical director of Manakai o Malama Integrative Healthcare Group and Rehabilitation Center and CEO of Global Advisory Services Inc. Please submit your questions to info@manakaiomalama.com.
