Introduction
Much research into the effect of homeopathic preparations uses plants for testing. Such ‘bioassays’ avoid the possibility of the placebo effect to which humans subjects are prone, enable invasive testing to identify physiological and biochemical responses, and allow many replications for statistical analysis. We might extract this practice from the laboratory and take it to the fields and gardens. If we do this, we can raise our focus from getting data for some other purpose and concentrate upon the health and yield of those plants. This is increasingly referred to as ‘agrohomeopathy’. There are more and more references to this emerging discipline, because there seem to have been many positive and encouraging results and - surely - the goal is so desirable. Cheap, non-toxic, open-source interventions to grow the food we need whilst repairing the Earth we have damaged, must be high on the wish-list of most people.
I have been asked to sketch an outline for this e-zine. I propose to create a snapshot of the discipline at the moment (2008), suggest allied disciplines, and offer a way of taking this all forward. I hope it will be of sufficient interest for people to join in the discussion and, most important, to try this. Some of what I have written is a little provocative and I hope you will take the bait, because I am taking the trouble to write this in part so I can learn from others.
I studied homeopathy with Misha Norland in the 1980’s but my work with agriculture took over for many years, so I did not convert my diploma into an RSHom. I have had unambiguous positive experiences with homeopathy, so my conviction that it can work is from personal experience, rather than any statistical analysis. However, I am a great advocate of such testing because my rational scientific mind wants to understand what is going on that allows no-thing (the remedy) to affect us, and so we can improve the discipline over the full range of its potential.
