Reflections on the Agriculture Conference 2025
In a focused yet festive atmosphere, the Agriculture Conference 2025 took place from February 5 to 8, 2025, at the Goetheanum. Up to 800 participants from 47 countries gathered to work together on three key tasks and themes: the future of the biodynamic movement, the Earth as a living organism, and the methodological approach through Rudolf Steiner’s seven life processes.
The future of biodynamic agriculture
After celebrating the 100th anniversary of the biodynamic impulse last year, we are now focusing on its future. We are called upon to shape this future through our own strength. How can and should this future unfold? Quite simply, by encouraging as many people as possible to practice ecological, regional, and multifunctional agriculture in a collaborative way. This was vividly demonstrated in the opening panel discussion by three initiatives from Egypt, India, and Central America. It is encouraging to hear about large projects involving tens of thousands of families who, through sustainable agriculture, achieve noticeable improvements in their living conditions. This panel was led by women, as the expansion of these practices in the villages is primarily carried out by women.
Other inspiring contributions introduced initiatives where schools are integrated into farms, with lessons directly connected to practical work in the barn, on the fields, in the garden, kitchen, and construction projects. We heard about a project in Great Britain with 16 locations, where the biodynamic organism serves as a therapeutic space for young people going through challenging phases in their lives. Equally impressive were the stories from a small farm in Flanders, Belgium, which, surrounded by industrial agriculture, has created its own future through social land initiatives and various forms of communal living.
A key to understanding life
Rudolf Steiner’s seven life processes offer a detailed description of the phenomenon of life. These processes appear in human life as progressive steps: breathing – warming – nourishing – secreting – maintaining – growing – reproducing.
Following a comprehensive introduction from a medical perspective, we explored these processes through practical exercises. They were translated into learning steps, such as turning the first process, breathing, into observing, and the fourth process, secreting, into individualising. This method serves as a tool to analyze and consciously shape the farm organism.
How can we restore the "breathing" of the soil if it stagnates? Is individualization sufficiently considered in fertilization? Are growth and development based on a solid foundation of the preceding life processes? By applying the perspective of the seven life processes, we can also rediscover and better understand the Earth as a living organism.
The Earth as a living being
What does life mean for the Earth and for us as humanity? Three aspects of life were named: Bios as vegetative life, visible in the world of plants; Zoé as soul life, expressed in the diversity of animals; and Aion as spiritual or eternal life, which can be carried by human beings.
The Earth as a living being becomes comprehensible when we consider its cosmic position. It exists at a distance from the sun that allows for a dynamic, moderate warmth in the atmosphere—unlike its planetary neighbors. The sun-near Venus is characterized by hot vapor, while the distant Mars is marked by icy cold. This "middle" quality also defines fertile soil, where warmth and air on one side and moisture and minerals on the other meet and interact.
Our responsibility for the Earth
The conference was guided by the core idea of the Michael Letter: "Michael’s Task in the Sphere of Ahriman."It reminds us that since the beginning of modern times, humanity has carried a special responsibility. The development of natural science and technology has made us individually free, but at the same time, our civilization has become a potential threat to life on Earth. Biodynamic agriculture offers a concrete way to fulfill our responsibility to the Earth, acting from free cultural impulses to protect and nurture it.
The next Agriculture Conference will take place from February 4 to 7, 2026, on the theme: "You never farm alone. Living Communities for the Future." The foundation for the conference will be the Michael Letter "Michael’s Experiences and Encounters during the Fulfillment of His Cosmic Mission" from Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, GA 26.
