Living communities for the future

The 100th anniversary of the biodynamic impulse is behind us, and we stand at the threshold of an open future. The theme of the Agriculture Conference 2025, "The Earth as a Living Being," invited us to rethink and renew our relationship with our planet. Humans are co-creators, evolving together with the planet. As Ita Wegman said, "We are invited to transform ourselves and allow our actions to flow into the earth as the result of what we have transformed in ourselves.” Thus, we begin to realize that by healing ourselves we are healing the Earth.

The challenges we face today as individual farmers seem insurmountable, both on the small and the large scale. It is easy to lose faith and focus when facing the socio-political and economic situation, as well as the environmental climate crisis confronting biodynamic and organic farms. Our inner certainty and confidence as farmers are often fragile. Knowing that we cannot solve it alone, perhaps we can see new potential if we do it together. Can the motto "You never farm alone" serve as a gateway to a positive future for our Earth, our farms, and ourselves?

Farms are not isolated, and agricultural activities are a collective effort—always in community and in service to others. Agriculture is about community, about coming together, building relationships, and forming alliances that strive for a new and more sustainable social dynamic. Nature provides a good model for understanding this: it always responds, renews itself, and adapts when one part interacts with another. Community is the culture of selflessness.

The process of community building is as intensive a work as it is rewarding. To build up a human community often requires a patient process that involves many levels of interaction; conversations, commitments, and confidence in one another. It can be exhausting, overwhelming, can involve uncertainty, and requires new social skills to be developed.  With time, community also brings joy, trust, security, and resilience. New social ground emerges, and we see that the social and natural soil need each other. 

How can we meaningfully exist as earth-bound humans without a connection with the Earth? The farm is a source of community building. As a natural part of the process, relationships form and evolve between all the living, as well as spiritual beings, involved in the farm individuality.

By exploring and researching collaborative farming, aspects of agroforestry, soil health and vitality, food systems, one health approaches and economic impulses, we can revitalize life forces on both personal and social levels and to find solutions. The participation of all people, which presupposes inclusion, is the key to shaping a hopeful future. Under the guiding principle "You never farm alone," we aim to develop community-supported forms of agriculture.

Topics that may be developed

·      Social and economic aspects that can help sustain agricultural enterprises for the future 

·      Humus – community of soil and people 

·      The collaboration with pedagogy, medicine and nutrition

·      The human connection with spiritual beings. 

Michael Letter

The Experiences of Michael in the Course of His Cosmic Mission. 

Rudolf Steiner: Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, GA 26.



Date

Agriculture Conference, 4–7 February 2026