Dear Members and Friends,
Since its founding, the Biodynamic Association has gone through many expansions, contractions, and incarnations. Our completely new board was formed by invitation following the dissolution of the Biodynamic-Demeter Alliance. When we first convened last spring, we began to work with some questions.
“Is the BDA in its current form capable of meeting the needs of biodynamic agriculture on our continent in these challenging times?”
"How can the BDA best serve biodynamics and the farmers and gardeners who practice biodynamics?”
We have come to some conclusions.
While much good and solid work has happened in this newly emancipated BDA, a further re-visioning and restructuring is necessary to meet the needs of our time. In order to best serve biodynamics and honor the generations of amazing people who have poured their love and labor into the organization, we need to refocus our efforts, and so we are now at a moment of pause. The BDA office is simplifying activities, reducing to minimal staffing and maximizing volunteer and Board efforts for this season of clarification. This will allow us to maintain financial viability while we clarify our priorities and chart a path forward. These activities are in alignment with the fiduciary responsibilities of the Board, however it is with an atmosphere of deep grief that Rebecca and Anthony’s employment with the BDA has now ceased and Zachary has become a part time employee.
And so, we would like to take this opportunity to shed some love on some deserving people.
These deserving souls are Rebecca Briggs, Zachary Krebs, and Anthony Mecca.
Rebecca Briggs is a gifted communicator who has edited our journal, kept us informed, shared information, stewarded our history, dusted the mold off our paper files, scanned them and organized our electronic ones since 2007. Rebecca has seen the BDA through some major expansions and contractions. During the current contraction she has selflessly trained, organized and arranged to hand off her expertise to those struggling, perhaps in vain, to fill her (metaphorically) enormous shoes. Rebecca has been an eyewitness to the people and business of the BDA for the past 21 years. Everyone connected with the BDA during that time owes her a great debt of gratitude. Thank you, Rebecca!
Zachary Krebs, co-Executive Director and highly competent and loyal IT guy, over the course of time has made himself indispensable, and will stay on part-time to manage the day-to-day technical aspects of the office as well as migrate the BDA website to a new platform. His dedication to the BDA since 2011 is legendary among those involved in the practical side of biodynamics in the USA. Thank you, Zachary!
Anthony Mecca began work with the BDA in 2015, and his first and best love has been education. He took over the North American Biodynamic Apprenticeship Program (NABDAP) and by 2018, in response to needs of farms and mentees, had shaped it to become the Foundation Year Training. In January 2024, in the wake of the Alliance’s dissolution, he became co-executive director and kept the BDA vibrant in connections to the Goetheanum, international and regional group events, EduCareDo and a number of research conferences. Through it all, he has held his work with the farmer training participants closest to his heart, and indeed carries it into his work with Sun Heart Farm. For his immense dedication to biodynamics and the BDA, we express our deepest gratitude. Thank you, Anthony!
Looking forward…
This will be a time of active observation, listening and responding. In the coming months, we will be asking you, the gardeners, farmers, producers, practitioners, celebrants, and students of biodynamics, to share your perspectives and imaginations so that the board, with the biodynamic community, can devote themselves in such a way that the BDA may be reformed as a sustainable, responsive, and effective body that, while cultivating the spiritual foundation of agriculture, is able to fulfil its mission of service to the larger community and the healing of the earth through agriculture. We look forward to sharing the reborn vision and getting to work. Your good will during this time of renewal is deeply appreciated.
February’s symposium in Loveland, Colorado, was inspirational. If you were there, we hope you felt it too. The challenges we face as farmers, as a community, as human beings, will only be solved by working together, economically, ecologically, and spiritually, hand in hand, in sister and brotherhood, towards a new paradigm. To tackle the challenges we face, future farms need to be villages, and we will need courage to reach out and form new communities. New solutions emerge when we truly listen to each other and truthfully strive towards the same goal, one that is neither “mine” nor “yours.” When we make space for the new to emerge by sacrificing our personal attachments, we can all be part of the transformative process of re-imagining a new social culture and a renewed agriculture.
The farmers, gardeners, and biodynamic practitioners all over this continent are the living heart of the Association. We see farming as a sacred act, and a calling that unites us. We recognize the earth as a living being with which we share a common spiritual path. This impulse is and should be at the core of our movement. In this spirit, we hope you will enjoy this season’s journal, which will be arriving soon, and its living examples of biodynamics at play in this country today. Supporting and promoting these activities (your activities) is the work of the BDA. The community networking pages and activities calendar will remain and we will continue to share organizational process updates and opportunities to connect in person and virtually via e-news monthly.
With warm hearts, we thank you for reading.
Benjamin Davis, Coree Entwistle, Carin Fortin, Dorothy Hinkle-Uhlig, M Mueller, Jae Vyskocil
Biodynamic Training Opportunities Update
The Biodynamic Association will no longer be running the Biodynamic Foundations training.
Anthony Mecca, who previously ran the program, will begin a program at Sun Heart Farm with a new cohort beginning in Summer 2026. Threefold Community Farm also runs a wonderful in person course. For info on both of those offerings as well as others see below.
Foundations of Biodynamic Agriculture at Sun Heart School for Spiritual Agriculture: an in-depth online training with optional but encouraged in-person seminars in agriculture from a biodynamic perspective. Open to aspiring as well as established farmers, gardeners, homesteaders, teachers, and other land stewards.
Threefold Community Farm (formerly the Pfeiffer Center, Chestnut Ridge, NY): Offers a one-year part-time practical training in biodynamics covering the basic principles and timely activities of biodynamic agriculture through the seasons.
For other educational opportunities please see Education and Training Opportunities.
BDA services anticipated to continue through 2026:
- Membership
- Practical Biodynamics, an online, participatory discussion of biodynamic topics in coordination with JPI Biodynamics. First Tuesdays through December 1, 2026 - Next session coming up on April 7.
- Calendar
- Forums: Job Postings, Internships and Apprenticeships, Land Opportunities, etc.
- Blog