Cow Pat Pit (CPP)

What is Cow Pat Pit?

Cow Pat Pit (CPP) is a collective preparation based on cow dung, into which the six compost preparations 502 to 507 are incorporated. It is fermented over several months in a shallow earth pit and spread in water over large areas. It was developed by the New Zealand and Indian pioneer Peter Proctor in the 1980s, originally to spread biodynamic practice in India, where a form of the compost preparations was needed that worked at scale and could be applied in water.

CPP is sometimes confused with barrel compost after Maria Thun — both start from the cow pat, both contain the six compost preparations, both are spread rather than worked into the compost. In origin, recipe and field of use, however, they differ.

Origin and context

Proctor developed CPP following Maria Thun’s work on barrel compost, which he came to know in his training courses in India. The adaptation was pragmatic: Indian farms had no Demeter inventory of sheaths and often no cycle of materials that could be composted in Central European terms, but they had cow dung in abundance. Proctor reduced the recipe, moved the fermentation into an open earth pit rather than a barrel, and reworked the preparation so that it is spread above all as a water spray — over hectares, not only as an impulse for the compost.

CPP thus became the carrying biodynamic tool of the South Asian movement. In Europe it has not taken hold; here barrel compost after Thun dominates (barrel fermentation, in keeping with Demeter, anchored in the Central European school).

Making it

Into an earth pit about 30 centimetres deep, framed with boards or timber, fresh cow dung is placed — the quantities vary from school to school. Calcium from eggshells and basalt powder are worked in. After one or two weeks the six compost preparations 502 to 507 are set into small bored holes, with a valerian spray over them. The pit is covered with a little soil and left to itself for several months.

The finished substance is dark, crumbly and earthy in smell. In amounts of around 100 grams per hectare it is dynamised in water and spread, as horn manure is.

Use and effect

CPP is understood as enlivening the soil and the plants. Unlike horn manure, which is said to work in depth and build the soil, CPP is in the Proctor tradition broader and more of an impulse — a quick start for soil biology, especially on exhausted land or land newly in conversion. It is applied during the growing phase, often in tandem with horn manure.

In Indian biodynamic practice CPP is by volume the single most important preparation. In Central Europe it is used only here and there, mostly by farms with a connection to India or training with Proctor.

How it differs from barrel compost

Barrel compost after Maria Thun (1958) is fermented in a barrel with a wooden lid over several weeks and likewise contains the six compost preparations, but its recipe and concept lie elsewhere: Thun understands it as a soil starter in the narrower sense, usable on smaller areas as well, and recognised in Demeter circles.

Cow Pat Pit is the open pit version, laid out on a larger scale, intended primarily as a spray for whole fields, and developed outside the classical Demeter canon. Both preparations have their place; they are often confused because both work from the impulse of the cow pat.

Its place in biodynamics

CPP is part of the biodynamic tradition but not of the classical Steiner canon (500–508). It is a development in the spirit of the method, clearly documented in its procedure and tested in South Asian practice.