Originally posted at hartkeisonline.com
Consumers’ Right to Opt Out of Conventional Food Supply is at Risk
By Kimberly Hartke
Wisconsin, the state of cheeseheads and dairy farms, is putting raw milk on trial. Rather, putting private buying clubs for raw milk on trial. Dairyman Vernon Hershberger is a symbol of food rights and freedoms for all U.S. citizens. Vernon, through private contractual arrangement with 200 educated consumers in his community, has built a solid business model that sustainably supports his large family.
In a day and age where we have way too many people living off government largess, we have to ask ourselves, is it not the over-regulation of even private commerce that is hindering families from supporting themselves?
For consumers who obtain raw milk through private contract, this case is very significant. If the state of Wisconsin succeeds in making this father a criminal for his private concern, some raw milk activists believe the precedent could be used to hinder such dealings elsewhere. Cowshares, goat shares, Community Supported Agriculture, even sharing produce from your backyard garden could fall under scrutiny or be prohibited.
A Farmer’s Almanac for the Future
This month, The Greenhorns are proud to present The 2013 New Farmer’s Almanac. Following in the tradition of Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard” and planting calendars like Stella Natura, the New Farmer’s Almanac brims with practical wisdom, parables and proverbs, poetry and song, moon and tidal cycles, astrological charts, and of course ample consideration of the year’s weather.
This latest rendition remixes the old model by drawing from the written and artistic invention of a gritty new farming generation. In all, 120 contributors offer their perspectives in word and picture, bringing to light an untold agricultural history taking place right now. Included are tales and selections from a range of classic agricultural literature alongside modern meditations on current food politics; heirloom tomato lore and homemade recipes side-by-side with historic documents and reportage from the front lines of the contemporary agrarian movement that is now underway.
The following is a preview of the 2013 New Farmer’s Almanac:
Almanacs in a Utopian Age
by Rick PrelingerAlmanacs linked farmers with the work of earth and sky and the world of ideas. They thrived in an age of isolation that is almost unimaginable today, a time when there was no radio and newspapers moved slowly by mail. They were often the only books in their households besides Bibles, and they were meant to supply families with a whole year of reading.
Today most of us are a message or a flight away from one another (though we’d do well not to count on that forever). Our shared mind is clogged with rants, overnight sensations, and big ideas. More than ever we need almanacs to provide what we can’t get online: carefully edited collections of smaller notions, hints, hacks and hard information that might appear simple, but when taken with a tall glass of water expand into mind-changing, load-lightening, actionable ideas. An almanac is a little book hiding an encyclopedia within its covers. Its job is to offer proverbs that turn into projects, household hints that help harvests flourish, facts that keep animals healthy and plants straight on their stems.
I love the puzzles in old almanacs, but I love even more how they conclude: “Solution in next year’s Almanac.” Patience is civil disobedience in our era of speed. Some things take their own time.
More information about the 2013 New Farmer’s Almanac, released late March 2013, can be found by clicking here. For more about the Greenhorns, visit www.thegreenhorns.net.
The Greenhorns mission is to promote, recruit and support the growing movement of new and sustainable farmers in this country. The Greenhorns has produced a documentary film, a popular radio show, a book of essays— Greenhorns: 50 Dispatches from the New Farmers’ Movement, and hundreds of events for farmers across the country, including a Seed Circus and Farm Hack.
Rick Prelinger is the co-founder of the Prelinger Library, an open and appropriation friendly private library in San Francisco.
Alliances for the Next Generation: Reflections from the 2013 International Biodynamic Conference, Part Two
By Thea Maria Carlson, Laura Klemme, and Clemens Gabriel
This is the second of two reflections from Thea on the 2013 International Biodynamic Agriculture Conference. Read the first post here.
Participants in the BING Global Meeting
On the last day of the 2013 International Biodynamic Agriculture Conference in Dornach, the newly formed BING global invited participants to a “meeting of the young biodynamic movement.”
The Biodynamic Initiative for the Next Generation (BING) concept was first developed by the North American Biodynamic Association and was launched at the Youth Gathering at the 2010 Biodynamic Conference. BING’s goal is to create opportunities for the next generation of farmers, apprentices, educators, activists, and others inspired by biodynamics to connect, share, and learn from one another. Inspired by this initiative, four young women started the Biodynamic Initiative for the New Generation Nordic (bingn) in February of 2012.
In June, bingn organizer Laura Klemme began conversations with Thea Maria Carlson, coordinator of BING in North America, and Clemens Gabriel, a member of the German group “young and biodynamic,” about collaborating to create a global initiative, which we have called BING global. (See Thea’s blog post from December 2012 for more on these conversations.) The vision of BING global is to build a network of people engaging in biodynamic agriculture all over the world. We want to create spaces for encounter, exchange, and inspiration, to explore the big questions facing the new generation of the biodynamic movement: What is the future asking of us? How can we prepare biodynamic agriculture for the future? The meeting at the 2013 conference was the first event organized by BING global.
Large circle
Forty-five participants from all over the world followed the invitation and met on Saturday afternoon at the Goetheaum’s Schreinerei. We began with one-on-one conversations, sharing our burning issues and needs with regard to the biodynamic impulse. Then each person wrote down one burning issue and one need and posted them on the wall, clustering similar needs and issues together.
Posting issues and needs
Burning issues
Needs
An emerging thread seemed to appear in three parts:
- A movement from the outer into biodynamics: Is biodynamics “my” thing at all? What do I want? What is my “mission”?
- A struggle inside biodynamics: What kind of thinking lives in biodynamic agriculture that brings us closer to it? How to adapt biodynamics and take it to everyone?
- And the step from the inside of biodynamics out in the world again: How can biodynamic farms be in community/society? How to bring producer/farmer and consumer together? How to raise awareness of biodynamic agriculture?
The wish to work on individual development as well as working/sharing with people outside the farm was also strongly present in the participants.
From the nearly 100 ideas gathered on the wall, we identified several themes for conversation: training/networking/organization, economy and society, South and Central America, farm and society, and individual development. Working in open space groups, participants were asked to clarify a need and then identify a first step toward a solution.
Open space groups
Farm and society group
Latin America group
Before closing the meeting, each group shared from their conversation, summarized here:
OPEN SPACE GROUPS
| Theme | Needs | Solutions/First steps |
|
Training, networking, organizations |
Communication Opening the biodynamic movement Share practical experience What content to share? |
Network, public relationships to share with outside Criticism to the inside Go deeper within movement Responsibility for deepening the spiritual work |
|
Economy and society |
Economic and social forms based on the farm to support society |
Need more time, but working toward cooperative economy based on the farm |
|
South and Central America |
Professional training in Latin America |
Create structure |
|
Farm and Society (Group I) |
People need to care about what they put in their body – interest in where food comes from Farmers need to go out into society Non-farmers meeting farmers
|
Farmers cultivate interest in the “urban” issues Consumers and children come to the farm Farmers as teachers Build relationships between farms and schools Non judgment |
|
Farm and Society (Group II) |
Find our identity Discover who we are as a farmer and farm individuality
|
Go outside and show it |
|
Individual |
Enthusiasm fades Insecurity about organizing live |
Still looking for solutions |
However, with only 75 minutes for the entire meeting (and about 15 for these conversations), the most important need of the participants in the closing plenary was “More time!!”
So: Where will the next generation of biodynamic farmers and enthusiasts meet and get the chance to raise and work on these existential questions? BING global will try to find solutions and work on this task: to create spaces where inspired individuals can meet and work together to encounter the future of biodynamics.
Want to get involved with BING global? Please get in touch with Thea, Laura or Clemens!
Thea Maria Carlson is the Education Program Coordinator for the Biodynamic Association. She is a farmer, organizer, educator, and artist with roots in California and the Midwest, where she currently lives.
Alliances for the Next Generation: Reflections from the 2013 International Biodynamic Conference, Part One
By Thea Maria Carlson, Education Program Coordinator
I arrived in Dornach on Wednesday at noon, walking through gentle sleet from the train station to my homestay house, then up the hill past the Goetheanum and down the other side to the Youth Section. Entering into the ground floor of the warm orange building, the kitchen was buzzing with activity, eight people absorbed in preparing lunch. I hesitated at the doorway, removing my wet jacket and wool hat, and then a young blonde woman looked at me and smiled — “Thea!”
Laura left her pasta sauce simmering on the stove to give me a hug, and then grabbed Clemens by the arm — the other face I recognized from skype conversations last year. Soon we sat down to eat with the vibrant group of young people that had come from Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, France, Germany and Norway for the 2013 International Biodynamic Agriculture Conference.
Laura introduced me as the coordinator of the “original” BING in North America, which quickly led someone to ask, “What is BING anyway?” So I told the story of the youth gathering before the 2010 North American Biodynamic Conference, and the hunger of those 50 people who gathered to form an ongoing network. Then the creation of the Biodynamic Initiative for the Next Generation – a web page, an e-newsletter, a facebook group, and most importantly, more in-person gatherings to connect and share. Then Laura jumped in to tell of forming BING in Norway, and the unfolding of the possibility of a global BING network. The conversation continued around the table about young people’s efforts in biodynamics around the world, and then we walked up the hill for the beginning of the conference.
The theme of the conference was “Alliances for Our Earth,” and the highlight for me was the alliance building workshops held each morning from Thursday through Saturday. The conference’s 550+ participants divided into 16 groups, each on a different theme: bees, urban agriculture, farmer-consumer alliances, livestock breeding, regional development and others, along with our workshop with Laura and Clemens — “Biodynamic agriculture in the next generation”. Each workshop met for three days in a row, building and deepening through a process keynote speaker Nicanor Perlas characterized with three words: focusing, transforming and shaping.
Participants in the “Biodynamic agriculture in the next generation” workshop
On the first day of our workshop (focusing), about 30 people from 5 continents — ranging from college age to near retirement — gathered to work together. Clemens and Laura brought the question “What does biodynamic agriculture want to be in 35 years?” and in small groups we shared pictures of the future, practicing “active listening” to each speaker in turn. A young man in my group said, “Biodynamics might look quite different in 35 years. Young people need to keep the fire burning that previous generations have kindled, but to do that they need to add new wood.” After the small group conversations, we returned to the large circle for a plenary, where participants shared emerging themes:
- New ways of organizing farm work – cooperative arrangements, allowing farmers to be less specialized, making room to combine farming with other kinds of work
- Radiating out and broadening the influence of biodynamic farming beyond “biodynamic” to other farms and farmers, non-farmers, and society
- The balance between core and periphery, personal development and work in the world
Laura and Clemens reflect themes from the first day
On the second day (transforming), we began with eurythmy, moving through gestures representing the position of the human being between heaven and earth, and exploring the connection between past, future and present. Then, in new small groups, we were asked to identify and share the moment we had the feeling that our picture of the future could be realized. Clemens encouraged us to talk not just about what happened, or what we thought, but exactly how we felt in that moment. At my table, each person’s moment related to connecting with other people, coming to clarity through meeting and finding a common thread. For me, a pivotal moment was standing on stage at the 2012 North American Biodynamic Conference, were I felt the warmth, openheartedness, and excitement of the conference’s 700+ participants radiating toward me and my own centered warmth within.
The third day (shaping) centered on the question of how can we best serve the biodynamic agriculture of the future? We began again with eurythmy, bringing the gestures of the previous day along with moving “I,” “you” and then “we.” Then in small groups we shared what we thought was necessary to help us meet and work with the picture of the future. We talked about connecting, being with the farm, developing a relationship with the land, and very importantly, letting go. Returning one last time to the large circle, we were invited to share closing thoughts, but the collective mood was one of fullness, and no more words seemed necessary. Instead, we shared several minutes of deep silence. And then we moved on out into the world.
Sunset at the Goetheanum
Thea Maria Carlson is the Education Program Coordinator for the Biodynamic Association. She is a farmer, organizer, educator, and artist with roots in California and the Midwest, where she currently lives.
This is the first of two reflections Thea will share on the 2013 International Biodynamic Agriculture Conference. The second will focus on the meeting of the “young biodynamic movement” organized by BING global. Read Part Two here.
Midwinter Dreams
Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary
By Gunther Hauk
Reprinted from Spikenard Farm’s Winter 2013 newsletter (January 31)
Cold wind drives a dust of snow over the stark winter landscape, whistling around the hives, which stand like sculptures between the trees, adding a bit of culture to the frozen nature.
The colonies are tightly clustered, the individual bees forming a drop-shaped globe engulfing a number of honeycombs. Metabolic processes are low and movement of the individual bee is hesitant, in slow motion. Thus the cluster inches its way along the honey reserves, feeding enough in order to keep the little bodies from freezing. Wing muscles ‘shiver’ imperceptively, producing the warmth needed. In our zone 6 climate, this activity drastically increases toward the end of January/beginning of February, since at that time the sun’s arc has reached an important point after the winter solstice: it’s Groundhog Day, it’s Candlemas.
Forty days have elapsed since the sun has conquered darkness anew on December 25th, by gaining back nearly one minute of daylight in the three days after the winter solstice. It takes forty days (quarantine!) for something that goes outwardly unnoticed to become visible. Isn’t it a fact that for the first weeks in January it has been difficult to notice the rising power of the sun and then, all of a sudden toward the end of January, beginning February, it’s clear: the days are really longer, the sun’s rays warmer, the sun’s arc stands higher in the sky and the days have gained almost a full hour of light.
Life is beginning to stir in nature, often unnoticed by the city dwellers, or even by modern farmers only in tune with technology implemented to fulfill the tasks. It’s the time when birds begin their annual flirtatious behavior and the queen is laying the first eggs of the new year. Yes, it’s all about the birds and the bees. The colony’s new year has begun. These young worker eggs take three weeks to develop into full-fledged bees, and yet another three weeks before they become foragers and fly out to pollinate whatever blooms in nature. Hey, it’s mid-March by this time. How fortunate that the queen followed the sun and was not deterred by the freezing temperatures and snowdrifts!
Gunther Hauk has been an educator educator, biodynamic gardener/farmer, and beekeeper for nearly four decades. In 1996 he co-founded the Pfeiffer Center and built up one of the first biodynamic training programs in the US. Since that time he has been lecturing and giving workshops on biodynamic / sustainable beekeeping methods. His book Toward Saving the Honeybee was first published in 2002. Together with Vivian Struve-Hauk he co-founded Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary in 2006. Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary‘s mission is to promote sustainable and biodynamic beekeeping through education, experience-based research and a honeybee sanctuary, to help restore the health and vitality of the honeybee worldwide. Find out more at www.spikenardfarm.org.
Biodynamics in China: A Good Start
By Weihe Hu, Demeter China Association
A ten-day seminar on biodynamic and organic agriculture was held September 19-28, 2012, at a Biodynamic farm in Beijing, Phoenix Hill Commune, which is the first Demeter-certified farm in China and the only one to date.
The seminar, which was organized by the Demeter China Association and Phoenix Hill Commune, consisted of three parts: a biodynamic and organic training course lasting six days, a two-day forum on the management of organic farms and green marketing, and a two-day tour of organic farms in the Beijing region. Forty-five people from all over China came to the ten-day seminar, and more than 140 people came for the two-day forum.
Thomas Lüthi from Demeter International and Steffen Schneider from Hawthorne Valley Farm in the U.S. were key speakers for the biodynamic training course and forum. Some other Chinese speakers were invited as well to talk about holistic ways of thinking and practice in both traditional farming in ancient China and traditional Chinese medicine. Speakers from the East and West complemented each other in what we are doing, which is really linking our soul to the soil, with theory and practice. We received very positive feedback from all the participants, and they are eager to learn more in the next course.
With Thomas Lüthi’s help, we are planning a two-year biodynamic training course in six blocks, and now we are looking for people with a wealth of biodynamic experience who could come to China and teach as a guest tutors.
Weihe Hu grew up in a farming village in the south of China and has worked as a gardener and gardening teacher at Chengdu Waldorf School from September 2004 to July 2009. He studied biodynamic agriculture at Emerson college and gained experience volunteering at various farms in Europe during the period from September 2009 to August 2011. Weihe Hu started working for the Demeter China Association as General Secretary when it started in 2011.
