> It does make me wonder if anyone in agriculture/food/health/etc has known about this stuff in private, and for how long if so, like how Exxon did private climate-change studies in the 1970s: https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/-/media/Global/Files/climat...

Yes, Biodynmiac agriculture is just a lot of sound microbiological practices explained with a 'woo' lens which yields amazing food; essentially what the preps are just an inoculation of the microbes found in the Ruminants needed to ensure a healthy flora and fauna at the beginning of a growing season, add this to N fixated crops in rotation with heavy feeders and leaving times of dormancy to repair with grazing Ruminants animals in the off-seasons.

These practices have been in practice since (at least) the beginning of the 20th Century, they started in Austria but took hold in Germany in earnest ever since, and while I think Rudolf Steiner was mainly a grifter, he did create a solid foundation for renewable, sustainable Ag.

Source: Me, a cellular and molecular biologist that undertook a Biodynamic horticulture 'Master Gardener' apprenticeship in Europe. Then managed a Biodynamic farm in Hawaii.

Also, I'd argue most European and Asian cultures have fermented foods that span millennia that reflect the need to maintain a healthy gut biome with tasty food like kimchi or sauerkraut, tsukeomono, too.

I suspect the food industry has zero interest in this kind of research as bacterial overgrowth is directly related to overfeeding of said bacteria and that leads to a discussion of overeating, eating too much hard to digest (more for the bacteria) processed stuff and the surplus of fructose in our food.