workshop

The average age of farmers in North America continues to increase. Meanwhile, increasing numbers of their children are choosing not to stay on the farm. A lot of young people are passionate about the idea of farming. But realistically, how many have either the resources or the knowledge to actually start a farm or purchase an existing one, especially if they haven't grown up on a family farm of their own?

A Biodynamic farm aspires to be a harmonious living organism. What does this mean for the people who work on the farm? How can we nurture mutually supportive and fair relationships in the context of employer and employees on a farm? What are the roles of Biodynamic processors and retailers? This panel will lay out the issues and provide an opportunity for community discussion.

Sales of biodynamic products have increased dramatically in recent years, and food brands are quickly bringing millennial-savvy new products to market. But how many of these products are actually selling, and in what categories? Have BD products reached $10 million in sales? When will they hit $100 million? Backed by hard sales data from large and small retailers across the US, HowGood and other industry experts will explore the dynamics of biodynamic food product growth in the US Market, highlighting trends, challenges, and opportunities for farmers, food brands, and retailers.

Unfortunately, farm life is not inherently healthy, and, in fact, the demands of an agricultural lifestyle can at times be at odds with the well-being of farmers, farmworkers, and apprentices alike, on various levels. This workshop will draw on Rudolf Steiner's indications for understanding health and illness and explore how we can perceive and support our health needs on the farm, including understanding our constitutional tendencies, cosmic and earthly nutritional needs, and external therapeutic applications to support health and well-being and deepen our work on the farm.

Just because you can't own cows doesn't mean you can't be biodynamic! More than half of the members of the Biodynamic Association are gardeners in some capacity. Learn about ways of converting a lawn into a garden and a garden into an ecosystem. A lot of attention for the growth in the biodynamic movement can tend to focus on large-scale operations, but what about the individual and the incredible difference one family can make? Even when we are surrounded by the "bad" guys that in no way downplays the significance of what you as an individual can accomplish.

This workshop explores the question: What is the unique contribution of biodynamics to reversing global warming? We will start our conversation with the imaginative (and hopeful) picture provided by Paul Hawken, et al in Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming (www.drawdown.org). Drawdown is that moment when greenhouse gases peak in the atmosphere and begin their decline year by year.

This session focuses on the direct correlation between wealth redistribution, increased access to land, and healing justice for Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color (BIPOC). Through the intersecting lenses of decolonization, physiology, anti-oppression, and economics, we will share models of land access that restore harmony, reconfigure power, and reconnect the mycelial network of BIPOC land stewards to their purpose.

This workshopwill provide an introduction to the nine biodynamic preparations.

Curious to find out what biodynamic planting calendars are all about? In this workshop Sherry Wildfeuer will offer an introduction to basic astronomy, share the history and context of biodynamic calendars, and explain how to use the charts in the Stella Natura Calendar. She will explain when to sow your seeds to avoid inexplicable crop failures and to enhance the part of the plant you are interested in (i.e. red peppers rather than bushy, sparsely fruiting pepper plants; broad spinach leaves rather than bolted flowering stalks; etc.)

In this workshop we will explore what economic thinking really means, in the context of the times; how many social problems can you solve at once; the concept of the threefold commonwealth; the basics—land, labor, and capital—rethought; the nature of value and price; and the notion of economic associations beyond the marketplace. This workshop will be dialogue based along with reflective artistic exercises.