Shaping Life – Sowing the Future
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. 700 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.