The Living Farms research project documents the work being done on biodynamic farms around the world. The project team recently visited Kenya.
As part of the Living Farms project, the team from the Section for Agriculture at the Goetheanum in Switzerland will, by February 2022, evaluate the impressions gained on up to twenty biodynamic farms. The results will mostly be presented in short videos. Two pilot films have been completed, which document the work carried out by the Goetheanum Garden team (CH) and at the Heggelbach farm community in Germany. Project leader Lin Bautze recently went to visit Kenya together with Benno Otter from the Goetheanum Garden Park.
In Limbua, five thousand small organic farmers have joined forces and supply Germany with high quality macadamia nuts, whilst also producing food for their own needs on less than one hectare of land. Some of the small farmers have started using biodynamic preparations. They are experimenting with adapting them to local conditions because there are, for instance, no oak trees in Kenya.
The Mbaghati Waldorf School has around 350 students from classes 1 to 9. It uses the school garden and agricultural land for teaching and for growing produce for the school canteen. It also keeps cows, which means that the school has its own milk supplies. Regular biodynamic training sessions take place at the school and are attended by people from all over Africa.
Both initiatives are applying agroforestry, a system that combines trees such as macadamia, avocado, papaya with crops of vegetables and sweetcorn. This system leads to greater biodiversity and to carbon dioxide being absorbed by the trees. In addition, the soil does not dry out so fast thanks to the shade provided by the trees.
The project team will next visit Australia and New Zealand and then continue on to Europe. Experiences were also recorded at the recent Agriculture Conference. More ...
As part of the Living Farms project, the team from the Section for Agriculture at the Goetheanum in Switzerland will, by February 2022, evaluate the impressions gained on up to twenty biodynamic farms. The results will mostly be presented in short videos. Two pilot films have been completed, which document the work carried out by the Goetheanum Garden team (CH) and at the Heggelbach farm community in Germany. Project leader Lin Bautze recently went to visit Kenya together with Benno Otter from the Goetheanum Garden Park.
In Limbua, five thousand small organic farmers have joined forces and supply Germany with high quality macadamia nuts, whilst also producing food for their own needs on less than one hectare of land. Some of the small farmers have started using biodynamic preparations. They are experimenting with adapting them to local conditions because there are, for instance, no oak trees in Kenya.
The Mbaghati Waldorf School has around 350 students from classes 1 to 9. It uses the school garden and agricultural land for teaching and for growing produce for the school canteen. It also keeps cows, which means that the school has its own milk supplies. Regular biodynamic training sessions take place at the school and are attended by people from all over Africa.
Both initiatives are applying agroforestry, a system that combines trees such as macadamia, avocado, papaya with crops of vegetables and sweetcorn. This system leads to greater biodiversity and to carbon dioxide being absorbed by the trees. In addition, the soil does not dry out so fast thanks to the shade provided by the trees.
The project team will next visit Australia and New Zealand and then continue on to Europe. Experiences were also recorded at the recent Agriculture Conference. More ...
