New Faces at the Biodynamic Association

Welcome to Our New Board Members
We are pleased to welcome Osiris Abrego Plata (California) and Joseluis Ortiz (New Mexico), who joined the BDA Board of Directors during the biannual board meeting held earlier this month in at our office in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Learn more about the committed individuals who volunteer their time and wisdom on behalf of our Association. 

BDA Board of Directors (L to R): Joseluis Ortiz, Wali Via, Peter Littell, Steffen Schneider, Janet Gamble, Daphne Amory, Lisa Murgatroyd, David Byrnes, Osiris Abrego Plata (not pictured: Greg Georgaklis and Susan West Kurz)

Welcome to Our New Development Director

The Biodynamic Association is pleased to welcome a new member to our team! Karisa Centanni has been selected to fill an important role for the BDA as the organization’s first-ever full-time Development Director. “We are so grateful to have Karisa join our team,” said BDA Co-Director Robert Karp. “She brings to this position just the combination of biodynamic passion and nonprofit savvy that we were hoping to find.” 

Centanni brings both practical knowledge of biodynamics and agriculture as well as the experience to help the Association secure new resources to support its growing work. Learn more about Karisa here.

Discover a Treasure Trove of Information and Inspiration

2016 Conference Recordings Now Available!

Revisit the talks you loved and explore what you missed through the 2016 Biodynamic Conference recordings! For the first time we are offering all recordings as a package online. BDA members receive a $75 discount! Purchase recordings now and you can instantly access:

• Video recordings of all 10 keynote speakers 
• Video recordings of popular 90-minute workshops with leading biodynamic educators Gunther Hauk, Mac Mead, and Sherry Wildfeuer
• Audio recordings of more than 35 workshops, including both pre-conference and main conference workshops

Biodynamic Webinar Series

Learn from top biodynamic educators from the comfort of your home through interactive webinars. Space is limited in these classes, so sign up now to reserve your spot!

• Biodynamic Beekeeping: Health & Hive Management — Monday, June 5, with Alex Tuchman
• Biodynamic Beekeeping: Winter Preparation — Thursday, August 17, with Alex Tuchman

Fall/Winter Issue of Biodynamics Now Available

The Fall/Winter issue, Tierra Viva: Farming the Living Earth, is now available online for all members of the Biodynamic Association, featuring articles such as "Anthroposophy and Environmentalism: Four Gifts" by Dan McKanan, "At the Heart of Biodynamics" by Andrew Lorand, "Bridging the Americas: Context and Impulse" by Matias Baker and Sarah Weber — and much more! (Log in to access.) Full members will receive the paper version in the mail in February.

The Spring/Summer 2017 issue will be available online soon!

Join now to enjoy immediate access to the four most recent issues of Biodynamics, our growing collection of online members-only educational resources, the Biodynamic Directory, and discounts on BDA educational webinars and events.

Sharing in the “Great Celebration of All Creation” at the Fellowship of Preparation Makers Conference, by Coree Entwistle: When we crossed the Canadian border into Sarnia, the sky was light, and there were sparkles of snow in the air.  The effect was tropical, to my southern eyes.  We don’t get partly cloudy snow down in our part of the world.  I was enchanted....

How I Came to Appreciate Organic Food, by Richard Chomko: People often find their way to organic food because of personal health challenges. That was the case for me. As a child, I grew up on a conventional farm eating a lot of sprayed raspberries and strawberries straight out of the field. Already as a teenager I was having serious health issues such as a lot of allergies. Like many people, I didn’t get satisfaction from conventional medicine, and started looking at how I could improve my diet....

Sacred Farming, a Collaboration with the Earth, by Jessie Crow Mermel: “Farms are the places where we negotiate our relationship with nature,” explained Tom Spaulding, Angelic Organics Learning Center’s co-founder and Executive Director at the Midwestern Ecology Symposium at the Janesville Muslim Dawa Circle....

Building a Local Network of Biodynamic Practitioners: KY-TN DemeterLOCAL, by Hilary Higgenbotham: Just outside of Nashville, Tennessee, 8,000 beautiful acres of rich bottomland cradled by the Cumberland River make up an area called Bells Bend. A few years ago, community members saved this rural, agricultural land from a huge development. Bells Bend is a place where community members of all ages welcome Nashville friends and enjoy weekly potlucks, square dances, harvest festivals, and farm harvest days.... 

Why Cows Have Horns

A new report, Why Cows Have Horns, published by he Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) in Frick, Switzerland, considers what horns mean for cows and what that means for practices such as dehorning and breeding hornless animals. 

Read the full report here.

Report from the Section for Agriculture

The Biodynamic Preparations in Context: Individual Approaches to Preparation Work

The Section for Agriculture commissioned, directed, and published this study on the biodynamic preparations. It is particularly directed towards the International Biodynamic Association (IBDA), Demeter International (DI) and the Circle of Representatives of the Section for Agriculture, and especially their member organizations and their individual members. The hope is that this study will stimulate interest and encourage an extensive exchange about and reflection on the biodynamic preparations throughout the movement. This publication contains 14 case studies with comprehensive and easily compared descriptions showing how a selected group of people from across the world work with the preparations in their own geographical and social contexts.