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Celebrating Biodynamics in a Dynamic Time on Earth
In this special podcast episode, Sheila Foster, the Executive Director of the Biodynamic Demeter Alliance, discusses the important (and growing) role of Biodynamic farming, gardening, and land-stewardship practices as a potent way to heal and restore soil, water, food, and ecosystems from industrial agriculture and chemical pollution.
As Sheila tells us, Biodynamic practices were first articulated by genius polymath Rudolf Steiner in 1924 in response to European farmers seeking advice to help them restore the declining fertility and nutrition of their farms and farm products that ensued when post-WWI industrial munitions factories were converted to manufacture synthetic fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals. Biodynamic practices incorporate ancient and indigenous Eurasian practices and folk wisdom in a highly intuitive, scientific, and relationship-based form of agricultural and ecosystem stewardship. The enhanced biodiversity, soil vitality, and robust microbial life found in Biodynamic agriculture results in more nutrient dense, vital, and life-enhancing produce, meats, eggs, and dairy products. As our society contends with increasing occurrences of obesity, cancer, leukemia, depression, cognitive maladies, and other diseases and adverse impacts arising from industrial, chemical-based agriculture, we need practices like Biodynamics to continue to scale-up. In addition to positive impacts on health and wellness, Biodynamics is also one of the key tools in ecosystem restoration, detoxification, and carbon sequestration strategies that are so critical to reversing climate change, restabilizing soils, and enhancing biodiversity.
Sheila and the Biodynamic Demeter Alliance team are scaling Biodynamics, training young farmers, certifying Biodynamically-grown products, enhancing the marketing, branding, and outreach of the Biodynamic community, and providing innovative educational resources to farmers, ecosystem stewards, and eaters alike. Moreover, in just a few weeks from this publication, the Biodynamic Demeter Alliance is hosting its first in-person annual national conference since 2019! The conference is being held November 8-12, 2023 in Westminster, Colorado. As of this publication, special deals and discounts are available: biodynamicconference.com (including a special 2 for 1 offer, available for a limited time!).
About the 2023 Biodynamic Conference
The Biodynamic Conference brings together 700 – 1000 farmers, gardeners, educators, students, activists, entrepreneurs, and others interested in Biodynamics from across the United States and beyond. The largest Biodynamic gathering in the US, this conference offers an unparalleled opportunity to connect, learn, question, share, and explore over the course of five days of programming.
Anyone from beginners to long-time Biodynamic practitioners can learn in a variety of ways, including on-farm field days, intensive pre-conference workshops, inspiring keynote presentations, and breakout workshops. Special events provide many opportunities for connection, conversation, and celebration.
As of this publication, BOGO (“Buy One Get One” Free) tickets are still available! Go to biodynamicconference.com for more information.
Sponsors of the conference include Fox Hollow Farm, Josephine Porter Institute, Chelsea Green Publishing, Earth and Humanity Foundation, Mercola, the Biodynamic International Federation, and the Y on Earth Community.
About Sheila Foster
Sheila Foster is the Executive Director of the Biodynamic Demeter Alliance. She has worked across the spectrum of the environmental and food system movement for more than two decades. A successful nonprofit leader and scientist at heart, her work has focused on the belief that hope for the world lies in the intricate web that ties us all together and our ability to nurture and care for each other, the soil, and our fellow living beings. Through her experience nationally and internationally, she has seen that one of the greatest avenues for creating a thriving world is through the principles and values of biodynamic agriculture. Previous to her role at the BDA, Sheila has served as Executive Director of Rogue Valley Farm to School, Development Director of the Lomakatsi Restoration Project, Development Director of the ScienceWorks Hands-on Museum. She holds an MBA in Sustainable Solutions from Presidio Graduate School.
A mother and a fan of walking anytime she can, Sheila spends whatever free time she has enjoying her daughter, walking in the woods and connecting with her local community. She lives in Southern Oregon, on lands that have been stewarded since time immemorial by the Takelma, Latagwa, and Shasta peoples.
About the Biodynamic Demeter Alliance
The Biodynamic Demeter Alliance (BDA) was recently established through the merger of the Biodynamic Association and Demeter in order to further the Biodynamic movement in North America and beyond. The BDA’s mission is to advance the adoption of Biodynamic practices among growers and bring together producers, distributors, advocates, consumers, and policymakers to create a thriving, equitable agricultural system that nurtures and supports the well-being of communities economically, environmentally, and spiritually. The BDA also administers the Demeter® certification credential for farmers and producers.
Resources & Related Episodes
Ep. 124 – Nick DiDomenico, Co-Founder, Elk Run Farm & Drylands Agroecology Research
Ep. 123 – Marissa Pulaski, Co-Founder, Elk Run Farm & Drylands Agroecology Research
Ep. 98 – Lin Bautze, Goetheanum Section for Agriculture & Biodynamic Farming
Ep. 47 – Thea Maria Carlson, (past) Executive Director, Biodynamic Association
Ep. 44 – Pat Frazier, NP, Biodynamic Educator & Earth Steward Par Excellence
Ep. 5 – Stephanie Syson, Biodynamic Botanicals Herbal Medicine
Ep. 3 – Brook Le Van, Co-Founder, Sustainable Settings Biodynamic Ranch
Transcript
(Automatically generated transcript for search engine optimization and reference purposes – grammatical and spelling errors may exist.)
Welcome to the YonEarth community podcast. I’m your host Aaron William Perry and today
we’re visiting with Sheila Foster, the executive director of the biodynamic demeter alliance
and Sheila it’s so great to have this opportunity to visit with you today. Thank you it’s really
nice to be here Aaron. As you probably noticed I almost stumbled on biodynamic demeter alliance
because and we’ll chat about this for a moment later on it’s the new name resulting from
the recent merger of two different organizations that have been so instrumental in advancing the
biodynamic farming agriculture gardening and land stewardship movement and I’m just so thrilled
Sheila that we have this opportunity to chat about this because it’s one of the things that’s very
near and dear to my heart. Thanks yeah it’s a humble name I think at some point in our branding
process we’re gonna have to figure out how to make it less of a tongue tire. I can get used to a
biodynamic demeter alliance I just just did a wrong copy time. Absolutely. Sheila Foster has worked
across the spectrum of the environmental and food system movement for more than two decades. A
successful nonprofit leader and scientist at heart her work has focused on the belief that
hope for the world lies in the intricate web that ties us all together and our ability to nurture
and care for each other the soil and our fellow living beings. Through her experience nationally
and internationally she has seen that one of the greatest avenues for creating a thriving world
is through the principles and values of biodynamic agriculture. A mother and a fan of walking
any time she can. Sheila spends whatever free time she has enjoying her daughter walking in the
woods and connecting with her local community. She lives in southern Oregon on lands that have
been stewarded since time immemorial by the Tacelma, Lutagua and Shasta peoples and Sheila I last
summer had the opportunity to travel right through your neck of the woods as it were with my sweetheart
Karesa and was there the year prior with my son Hunter it’s such a special magical land where
you’re located maybe just just to kick us off and just to give us a sense of the place where we’re
speaking with you today tell us a bit about what what it’s like in your region right now.
Yeah I I love this region you know it’s a very unique place in the world because it has two
mountain ranges it has the Cascades and it has the Siscus and it’s one of the only places in the
world that has two mountain ranges that meet so you have an east west and north south mountain
range which means that if you live in town you’re surrounded by mountains on three sides which is
really just spectacular beautiful pine trees and deciduous forests and
it’s been a really special place you know there’s hot springs and stuff here and so this this
area actually sit for thousands of years as a place where people came for healing because of the
hot springs and you can still feel it today there’s something in the air and I’ve loved living here
I’ve been here for close to 20 years now and it’s just one of those special places in the
world and today it is 80 degrees and the leaves are starting to change and it’s beautiful.
I can just I can just picture it and I absolutely love that part of our world or continent
Turtle Island and thanks for thanks for painting that picture for us. So biodynamics and we’ve
got such an important announcement to share in this podcast episode which is a very special conference
coming up in November right here in Colorado and Westminster between Denver and Boulder
Colorado where many from around North America are going to be gathering to celebrate and share
and learn and teach about the biodynamics movement and Sheila in addition to the conference this
is also a very special time right because we’re coming up on the 100 year anniversary of the
biodynamic movement and maybe just to cue all that up for you can you just walk us into I know a
lot of our audience is familiar with biodynamics but not everybody can you just walk us through what
what is biodynamics why is it different from some of the other agricultural methods out there
and how did it how did they come to be yeah that’s a big question so so right now you’re right we’re
having a national biodynamic conference it’s going to be in Westminster very nicely situated
between Denver and Boulder and it’s November 8th to the 12th and we’re bringing in people from
all over the world we’re bringing in national speakers that we’re very excited to have really the
goal of that conference is you know it’s been four years since we’ve had a national conference
because of the endemic and all the changes that happened in our world and so we’re really excited
to have everybody come together and especially excited that we’re able here in the United States
to launch the 100 year celebration of biodynamics and that started in 1924 and it evolved because
there were farmers in Europe that were very concerned about what was happening because we were
two had happened there were lots of weapons that were leftover chemicals from those weapons that
were leftover and it was discovered that they could be used as fertilizers for the soils and
farmers were really concerned about what they saw happening and so they went to an Austrian
philosopher and scientist named Rudolph Steiner and they said help us we don’t know what to do here
we’re concerned this is going to impact the nutrients and the nutritional quality of the food
we don’t know what the environmental damage is going to be but really frankly they were primarily
concerned about what was happening to the quality of the food and Steiner is a very wise human being
and he agreed that this was a problem that needed to be addressed and eventually through the
years got talked into holding a series of lectures eight lectures and it’s those eight lectures
that formed the foundation of the principles of biodynamics and from there
there’s people came to the United States it started spreading around the world and Europe
is demeter is the certification and biodynamics and demeter certification is the most trusted
certification in Europe there’s thousands of farms that are demeter certified it really was the
basis of the organic movement and today any demeter certified farm starts with a foundation of
meeting the organic standards and then goes beyond that there the United States for one reason or
another it didn’t take off as fast and as quickly as it did throughout Europe but it’s starting to
really take hold particularly in the wine industry and I think the main reason for that is that
vineyards are very concerned about quality of course they’re producing a product and they are
really interested in being able to find the individuality of the land on which the grapes are grown
and so biodynamic practices are all about that it’s really about so one of the things that I
often think about with biodynamics is you know Rudolph Steiner also created Waldorf education
and one of the aspects of Waldorf education is that as a teacher your job is really to find
individuality of your of the child that you’re teaching and to bring that forth so a lot of
other education programs it’s you know opening up the child’s mind and pouring knowledge in and
through Waldorf education the belief is a lot more about finding how that what’s the gift that
this child is bringing into the world and how to use the teacher and lie in that and bring that
forth as a biodynamic farmer it’s a really similar philosophy how as a farmer do you look at your
land and so one of the aspects of biodynamics is that they look at the farm as one whole organism
so how do you as a as a farmer how do you bring a lie that individuality what is the gift that
this land can bring and how do you work in the relationships between all the beings that are on
your land to grow food and be a thriving community and so that’s really the foundations all the
practices and principles are based around that idea of how do we create a a thriving and
livened ecosystem that can produce food that nourishes people and it really holds what is the
essence of that plant that fruit whatever it is that the food is and so you know sourcing your
fertility close to the farmer on the farm building compost pile is building soil really working with
the soil to build up those microbial relationships that happen between the plants and the microbes in
the soil there’s preparations that are created that are used to help jump starts the compost files
and get that microbial action going the livestock is a very important part of a biodynamic farm because
you know it’s seen as a whole ecosystem and so rather than where there’s a lot of agro businesses
you know you have giant feed lots with all the cattle crammed into a pen and things like that which
beyond um not being sustainable environmentally is obviously horrible for the animals and so
making sure that we’re treating all of the beings animals and plants on our land with respect to end
and thinking about what they need that’s a really important aspect so like you don’t cut the horns
off the cattle you know you’re you’re not clipping the horns off the goats things like that um
so there’s this honoring of all of the creatures on your land and then that full cycle that those
creatures bring you know they eat the plants and the ground cover and then the manure that they
leave behind can then nourish the plants and it becomes you’re keeping a nutrient cycle and that’s
the real meaning of regenerative and so biodynamic in many ways goes beyond regenerating the land
it’s restoring the land and then it continues to regenerate so many many times people can go
if farmers have gone on to land that folks have said this you can’t do anything with this land it’s
it’s gone good luck and then they’ll start implementing biodynamic practices and low and
behold this life springs for it because it’s this cultivation of the life the life force that’s
there on that land so what do we do what do we need to do to bring that forward so I think um
there are a whole host of reasons why people become biodynamic farmers but I think ultimately
people continue farming biodynamically because it’s successful you end up with wonderful
production you end up with beautiful crops you end up with a life that is much more rewarding
you’re not just a cog in the wheel as a farmer you’re actually they’re interacting with your land
in a really positive way and um I think that’s what all farmers want whether they’re biodynamic or not
and biodynamic practices gives you a pathway to build those relationships yeah it’s it’s it’s so
beautiful and it just gives me this deeper sense of hope Sheila hearing about
about where biodynamics come from the origin story if you will and how biodynamics are helping
us in communities worldwide at this point and you know right here I’m I’m located at Elk Run farm
a small drylands agro ecology farm outside of Boulder and Lions Colorado that is one of the
uh farms on your curated visit schedule for the upcoming conference and here my my friends
Nick D. Dominico and Risa Pulaski each of whom have had their own individual podcast episode we
call it the his and hers pairing um set right in this amazingly abundant garden sanctuary that’s
been created in a in a location that was really degraded verging on desertified through
poor management practices and this is already a semi-arid region right so if things are not being
cared for in a certain way and if the natural uh cycles with the ruminants and you know
pre-colonialization here of course the buffalo the bison the elk were uh doing their thing and
keeping the regenerative cycles intact as a result but nowadays uh it’s it’s the willful
intent of the farmers and land stewards like Nick and Risa and of course our friends
brick and rows up at sustainable settings a few hours from here are doing such
extraordinary work and I’ve experienced this firsthand right so I have in my own embodied
knowledge uh the understanding of of what’s really possible and I know for many of us who
haven’t yet experienced this directly there there’s a really special invitation in all of this to
not only hear the knowledge and and pursue the understanding in terms of a cognitive awareness
but but also to visit some of these places and experience the various foods and wines and offerings
that are coming from these very special uh farms these very special uh relationships and I think
that’s another key in all of this it’s not the industrial model as you’re saying it’s very much
a a relationship-based model of reverence reciprocity respect this is really important especially in
these times in my opinion Sheila um and you know I I ended up writing a novel about all of this
called VeridiTos right and in the story the characters the main character Brigitte so if you
actually visits several of the farms that you guys are including on your tour at the conference
and so on just I’m so excited how this is all kind of weaving together and I wanted to just read a
quick quote from here that is quoting Rudolph Steiner uh and he said and and this is really echoing
what you’re saying about the origins uh after after the World War I with the chemical-based agriculture
really coming online he said the most important thing is to make the benefits of our agricultural
preparations available to the largest possible areas over the entire earth so that the earth
may be healed and the nutritive quality of its produce improved in every respect this is a problem
of nutrition nutrition as it is today does not supply the strength necessary for manifesting the
spirit in physical life a bridge can no longer be built from thinking to will and action food plants
no longer contain the forces people need for this and so this is obviously getting a bit outside
the box of how we ordinarily think and talk about agriculture and practice agriculture and I think
what Steiner’s articulating for us is is incredibly profound and I’m curious if you might
share with us opine with us for a few minutes what what your experience is of this wellspring
of wisdom that Rudolph Steiner has shared with the world well I think it’s really interesting you’re
there’s been some research that’s been done quite a bit actually around nutrition and the impact
of nutrition and one of the things that I found really interesting was the you know as a human
being the cell that created you as a human being was actually a cell so women are born with all
of their eggs intact and so the cell that created me was actually created in my grandmother’s body
right so that is a really interesting thing when you think about this whole nutrition aspect
because Steiner was writing those words back in 1920 1930 and here we are a hundred years later
and so it’s actually my generation your generation that are feeling the impacts of what
Steiner was talking about back in the 1920s right there was this ability to kind of
crawl our way through it up until now and I think we’re starting to see the very real impacts
of exactly what was being talked about you know you um we have enormous problems with obesity and
we can there’s all kinds of reasons for that right part of the reason is you know the way our agriculture
system is where it heavily promotes all kinds of foods that aren’t actually as they’re not only
not as nutritional as we need but their the whole diet isn’t as healthy as we need it to be so there’s
all kinds of reasons of people have to you know one of the problems I think by a dynamic food is
that often it’s priced out of reach for a lot of people that really that’s something that we
all as a community need to find a way to tackle is how do we make truly nutritious food
accessible to everybody it should not be that there’s this divide in that that the
hasn’t has not literally means that the have not will not have access to really nutritious food
like I used to work in the farm to school world and it’s an enormous divide that can happen for
children once they hit about second grade and you know you have the kids that have wealth and are
able to bring their own lunches to school and and these are all these organic foods and all
this other stuff and then you have the kids that are being fed you know processed food and all
the rest of the stuff and and it’s they both have to go into class after lunch and take the same
math test you know and is that fair so there’s all of these equity issues that are tied into it
and all sorts of things like that and I think I think Siner was seeing that he was seeing the
this life force that as a humanity we need to have in heavens when have we needed a life force
more than now right like all of these problems that um people were predicting and Siner was in
the lead of all of that that people were predicting we’re going to be problems they’re now
the the chickens have come home to roost thank you very much and we need to start dealing with it
and so I think um it’s made it so that biodynamic practices in terms of their ability to
store water with the way in which soil is taken care of the importance of biodiversity
and what’s happened with the loss of biodiversity the nutritional value all of those practices
are things our world really needs and included in that is the need to take a step back and say okay
what’s really important here we don’t need to be this mechanized civilization that only
thinks about how much profit we’re making all the time of course we have to make sure that farmers
are making money and that communities are making money and we can’t pretend that money is an
important because it is but there are ways in which we can approach that where we can make decisions
about what is the true cost of some of the activities that we’re doing you know there are
you could say that that you know hot house tomato that you pick up at some conventional grocery store
is cheaper than that beautiful biodynamic tomato that you pick up from your local farmers market
but the cost that actual environmental cost the human cost the health cost that like
cert adding those dollars and cents onto that vegetable that has chemicals that have been sprayed
soil that’s been degraded nutritional value that’s been degraded those are enormous costs that
all of us are bearing so let’s do a reset let’s look at okay how do we take all of those costs
into account and start actually paying the farmers that are doing the right thing the money that
they need to make a living so they want to keep doing it and create a world that is actually
sustainable for us and for future generations and take responsibility in that way and hold
companies to that standard and say it’s not good enough anymore you can’t just you know have
your profits for your shareholders we all our shareholders this is our planet we all need to be able
to have a say in how this world is taking care of
that so so beautifully put Sheila and my goodness we have a project ongoing right now related
to regenerative finance and ecosystem economics right and so so much of what you’re speaking to
extends way beyond you know what we think of when we’re talking about agriculture and food
per se into this entire human experience and experiment that we’re participating in world
wide right now and it is really clear I think to so many of us that we we really have a lot to
heal and transform and thankfully there are a number a growing number perhaps of amazing folks
really engaged in that healing and transformational work and one of the things I’m super excited
about with the work you’re doing and the upcoming conference is is how you’re convening so many
amazing folks on these topics speaking giving workshops and lectures and and I wanted to maybe
just ask you about a few of the folks that’ll be at the conference to share with our audience
and really encourage folks by the way I you can go to biodynamicconference.com to register
and encourage you to do so there there are tours to farms in the area as part of the programming
and then out the west and hotel several days of programming right then and there maybe maybe
Sheila you could tell us a bit about some of the speakers who will be there and some of the
experiences folks can have by attending the conference. Yeah so opening the conference I was so
excited when Liz Carlisle said yes so Liz Carlisle has written a phenomenal book called Healing
Grounds and it’s looking at traditional ecological knowledge it’s looking at black farmers it’s
looking at a lot of people of color and old traditions and and discoveries that are are coming
you know old knowledge that’s coming back to help steal our earth and so Ida Goosman is
going to be joining her she is Ida is a researcher in the central valley he’s looking at the
relationship between biodiversity above the ground and biodiversity below the ground in terms of
how gardens are planted and things like that but Liz’s book at Yemen had a chance to pick it up
I highly recommend it it’s amazing one beautiful story after the next so she’s opening the
conference or they’re opening the conference because I think one of the things that we’re really
interested in is bringing as many people together as possible and that’s of course the whole biodynamic
community and it’s also there we have so many allies and we all need to be working together
to move our planet towards the direction much of biodynamics is based on very ancient knowledge
that indigenous peoples around the world have been practicing for thousands of years and so
it’s really important for us to create the cities and create the conversations and whatever it takes
so that we’re listening to each other and learning from each other and so that’s kicking the
conference off and we also have constant washburn constant swashburn who’s with
Joanna Macy I don’t know if you know of her work but she has the work that reconnects
so consensus is bringing Joanna Macy’s work to the conference and she’s gonna help kind of
open the ceremony and then we’ll have all kinds of things to to greet people
so that’s one of our keynotes we’re having Nikki Sylvestery as speaking on Friday Nikki
helps create the people’s grocery in Oakland she was the founder of soil and shadow which is
their current organization and she was also the former CEO of Greenfraw which is Van Jones’
organization and so she’s been a wonderful advocate for sustainable regenerative agriculture
and she is now really looking at how do we take those principles and apply those to human systems
so what are the lessons and biodiversity that we can bring to human systems in terms of
human diversity and why that creates a much stronger more resilient community so she’s going to be
talking about ways in which we can nourish ourselves build our organizations because as we’re working
towards this movement that really is trying to change the world we need to understand
we have to take care of ourselves we have to take care of the planet so there’s some wisdom that
we can implement then on Saturday we have the honor of having Woody Tash there and he is going
to be talking about slow money and so the economic aspects and we’ve got Martin King who’s the ED
for Hawthorne Valley is going to join him on stage for a conversation to talk about like what’s
this mean economically how can we be investing in ways that are really taking care of the planet
and then on the last day we have a panel of wonderful amazing biodynamic farmers that are just
going to talk about where is biodynamics and how do we take this into the future and and all through
the whole days we’ve got the field trips that you’ve mentioned on Wednesday on Thursday we have
full day and half day workshops including things like a wine intensive we have an advisor training
for one of the things one of the bottlenecks that we’re finding in the biodynamic movement getting
more practices on the ground as we need more advisors so we’re in the process of launching advisor
training so that farmers with all this knowledge can learn about how to start advising other farmers
and they can retire from their farm and go out and help start new younger farms so there’s all
sorts of workshops happening on Thursday and then one of the things that we’re doing that I’m
really excited about is we have workshops each morning where you sign up for one workshop and for
three days you’ll attend the same workshops so it builds on itself and we’ve got a wide variety of
people who are teaching that one of the workshops I’m really excited about with that is with the
honor of Winona Ladouque and her mother Betty Ladouque are coming and they are leading a workshop
on finding your voice through art and action so really helping all of us discover what
where is our voice and trying to create this change and then we have Penny Livingston who’s
a big fan of the Dryland Ecology Center and Gavin Gonzalez who’s working on a
place similar to the Dryland Ecology Center in Mexico and they’re going to be having a whole water
workshop so we’re excited about that we’ve got another workshop that’s on land access another one
that’s on looking at power and love on a farm and how do we create more equality and farm workers
which is really important you know one of the things that we have in the biodynamic movement
is Seacom and Egypt who’s created the economy of love and so how do how do we start
creating more economies of love and we’re going to have an associate of economic conversation
that’s a three day so we’ve got a lot of that happening and then we have over 40
workshops that happen in the afternoon so the theme for the work for the conferences healing
people into planet and looking towards the next 100 years biodynamics so we have healing spirit
here healing the soil healing so we have all these tracks that you can take that will allow
you to kind of dive into these different aspects of how do we heal as a society and humanity
so that’s just a little blink of what we’re offering yeah so so wonderful she let’s so wonderful
and again folks can go to biodynamicconference.com to register this is November 8 to 12 this year
2023 right here in Colorado in Westminster and surrounding areas for the farm visits
between Denver and Boulder and yeah what an exciting time and what an exciting gathering
I want to be sure to take a moment and just remind folks that this is the YonEarth
community podcast I’m your host Aaron William Perry and today we’re visiting with Sheila Foster
the executive director of the biodynamic demeter alliance the upcoming conference you can go to
biodynamicconference.com to register and learn more about what’s happening here in a few weeks
you can also go to biodynamics.com to get all kinds of additional information about what’s
happening in the movement and I want to be sure to give a shout out to a few of our sponsors who
make the YonEarth community podcast series possible this includes Chelsea Green Publishing which
of course is also a sponsor of the biodynamic conference and with Chelsea Green you can go to our
YonEarth.org website and go to our partners and supporters page to find special discounts and
deals and goodies from a number of our partners including Chelsea Green and with them they’re offering
a 35% discount on all their books and audiobooks using the code yoe35 big shout out to Chelsea Green
and of course also to Puriam organic superfoods they’re also offering $50 off your first order
or 25% whichever is the greater. Weylay water soaking salts this is one of our social enterprises
at the YonEarth community that is making hemp infused aromatherapy soaking salts using hemp
grown at farms in Colorado that use biodynamic methods so this is a wonderful way to enhance your
own personal self-care health and wellness and support some of these farms as well. Of course a
special shout out to earth heroes sustainable products to profitable purpose consulting to
soil works garden preparations blending biodynamic preps from a number of different farms were
connected to earth coast productions and got to give another shout out to our book VeridiToss which
talks about a lot of these themes and threads and gives a bit of an intro to biodynamics as well
bringing the reader into a biodynamic workshop experience at sustainable settings. You can find
that in many of our other books and resources at wider.org and finally a very special shout out
to all of our ambassadors are growing global network of ambassadors doing regenerative sustainable
stewardship health and wellness work in a variety of contexts and communities. If you haven’t yet
become an ambassador and you’d like to you’ll get a variety of additional perks like access to our
behind-the-scenes segments with our podcast guests which will also be recording with Sheila after
our main interview and for folks who are part of our monthly giving program a huge shout out if
you’d like to give it the $33 or greater level we’re happy to send you a jar of the way they water
soaking salts each month as a thank you so huge shout out to everybody in the community and Sheila I
know that you’ve got a number of wonderful folks and companies sponsoring and supporting the
conference and I wanted to be sure to invite you to share about some of some of those folks who
will be not only making the conference possible but probably will be at the conference and we might
have an opportunity to connect with some of them. Yeah we have a huge list of sponsors so very very
grateful for all of those sponsors. Fox Hollow Farm is one of our sponsors and we’re all excited
because they’re going to be bringing some of their beautiful beef and we’ll be able to provide that
at the wine and cheese welcome when they when folks first arrive and then they’ll also be at the
biodynamic showcase and that’s one of the things that’s a little different with this year’s
conferences on Saturday from noon until six we’re hosting a biodynamic showcase and that is open
to the general public it’s only $30 dollars and you get three tastes of wine and for another
$5 you can have another three tastes and you get a super cute little wine glass that’s got the
logo on the front the demeter logo and the biodynamic demeter alliance logo so that’ll have tons
of vendors there I’m hoping that some of your sponsors of Y on earth are going to I think there’s
a number of them I know that are going to be there so that’s an opportunity to actually come and
talk to producers and wine makers in particular we expect to have over 40 different
rivals of biodynamic wine there for folks to taste another sponsor that’s going to be there is
JPI and the Josephine Porter Institute is an institute of the biodynamic movement that we all
love in the door and one of one of the things they do is have preparations but the other thing they do
is they have an amazing bookstore and so they’re going to have a bookstore at the conference but they’ll
also have a bookstore at the biodynamic showcase so we’re very excited about that the earth and
humanity foundation is sponsoring we also have Mercola is one of our sponsors and they’re going
to be at the showcase as well with all of their beautiful soul spraying products we also have the
biodynamic demeter the biodynamic federation demeter international is going to be in attendance
since so there’ll be some international products that are at the showcase
and we’ve had so many wonderful sponsors that have come forward like Neil and Sun suit there’s
a lot of management of the vineyards in Napa Valley and they’re sponsoring our our scholarship
campaign so we’re right in the middle right now of a really important scholarship campaign because
for many farmers and young people frankly it’s just too expensive to try to
fly to the conference pay for the hotel room and and and all that’s involved with that and so we
want to make this as accessible as possible and so um the scholarship campaign is a way in which
we do that so they’ve helped to to provide funding for that um we’ve also had you know slow money
as one of our sponsors which is really nice of course Chelsea green so um we have had
tons and tons of wonderful people that are sponsoring the trend in your many of the vineyards
they’re sponsoring the um the conference in the showcase so we’re very very lucky and if you go
to biodynamics.com or you go to biodynamicsconference.com you’ll find a list of all the sponsors
and one of the things that is exciting that we’re putting out at this year’s conference is a biodynamic
flavor guide and that will have a list of all the demeter certified producers in the united states
as well as regional groups and it’s a great resource just you know if you’re wondering
who else is in your state you can just stand down as lists and there’s a phone number or an email
you can reach out to them and all of our sponsors have advertisements in that um publication as well
so it’s made our conference program close to 80 pages long but it’s a resource that hopefully
folks want to keep for a long time. So great Sheila yeah what an extraordinary
opportunity you know for folks to have these experiences to connect directly and to have
resources that will last indefinitely what a what a wonderful opportunity and I’m just I’m
so thrilled this is happening here in Colorado and you know we participated in the conference at
Lake George back in 2019 before the pandemic I let a workshop we had a booth and had so much fun and
yeah here we are I guess four four years later and boy I know there are probably a whole lot of us
really looking forward to getting together and and sharing in that fellowship in that community and
camaraderie that we get to experience in person. Yeah zoom is awesome but it’s not the same as being
there. Yeah no doubt about it. Well I am I’m so thrilled we’ve had the opportunity to visit and
you know we’ll we’ll do our behind-the-scenes segment and and dive a little deeper into some of
your own personal story and background for our ambassadors and again if you’re not yet an
ambassador and like to become one you can go to winers.org to get that process started but I want
to ask also Sheila your your role as executive director you’ve had a number of leadership roles
with Rob Valley Farms School the development director rola lomo katsi restoration project hopefully
I’m saying that correctly also development director at science works hands-on museum you’ve
been in a number of leadership roles and have done a lot to build capacity at various organizations
working on these interconnected issues I want to ask you as an organizational leader what what are
you most excited about with this recent merger of demeter on the one hand in the bio dynamic
association on the other hand and and maybe you can give us a little insight into okay so we’re
thinking a bit about the next 100 years but maybe the next two three four five years from the
organization what are what are some of the things you guys are looking forward to that you’re
particularly enthusiastic about as as executive director yes you know one of the things that
we did pretty early on the organization was formed in January and then by November we had
so much a year ago we had a retreat where we brought everybody together you know one of the
big challenges with a national organization is like ours is that we’re fully remote and so
being able to bring everybody together is really fantastic and it’s really important in terms
of being able to build understanding and and get ideas that we can bounce off each other so in
November we had a retreat and point raised California and we identified four priority areas for
the organization and one priority area was to look at how do we better support farmers
who are doing the right thing and trying to regenerate the earth but they’re not really getting
paid for it because right now they have to embed all of that work in that bunch of carrots or
that head of lettuce that they’re trying to sell and it’s not an economically sustainable model
and so we want to find some ways in which farmers can get paid for the ecosystem services that
they’re providing so that was one priority area is they’re working on that on the international
level with the biodynamic federation demeter international they’ve been piloting an app that
they’re using in Europe and in Egypt and in South America and we want to bring that to the
United States so that it can eventually we could have farmers that are able to use this technology
they enter in their different practices attracts the value of those practices based on the research
that they spokes done and that generates an invoice that we can then take to local government
entities to companies would have you so that’s finding a pathway for farmers to be able to be paid
for more than just the crops that they grow so that was one priority area the other priority area
that we identified was what are the suite of services that we can be offering as an organization
that’s really going to help support and grow the biodynamics in the United States so what do people
need so they need education programs we need a stronger communication we need to be able to do
different things so over the last year we’ve been looking at you know how do we change our
former training program so that we can bring in more students can we have more online can we have
more youtube type quick and educational videos like what are the things that resonate with what
people mean so that’s the second area was developing the suite of services then national conferences
in that suite of services okay we need to work in dinner so let’s bring everybody together
cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in case you wondered to bring all these people together
how do we do that but that’s our job we’re going to do it so um so that’s one place uh and what
and if the priorities is the suite of services and then um a third priority area was how do we grow
and what are ways in which we can grow the marketplace so we have a whole branding effort
that’s been underway that we’ve been working on for the last year of really trying to get the word
out about biodynamics what does it mean to be biodynamic what does it mean for
demeter certification how does all that work together why is it important for the consumer to
be thinking about uh biodynamics and to be supporting demeter certified producers so that was
and should we have an online marketplace are there things we can do in terms of economic
development regionally and locally so looking at those sorts of the building the marketplace for
biodynamics and that’s the the real work of the third sphere of the biodynamic demeter alliance
we have three spheres one is demeter which is the certification the other is the cultural sphere
which is kind of the work that was what the biodynamic association did for close to 100 years
and that was all the education the research all of that and then the third is economic development
market development so that’s our third priority for this next year is how do we create something
that is going to be that’s really going to grow the biodynamic community or uh sorry uh grow the
biodynamic marketplace and then the fourth priority area is um to be able to
recruit more producers to get demeter certified and recruit more producers to be practicing
more biodynamic agriculture so that is the you know there’s other areas that I listed those other
three priority areas are all sort of pathways to be able to increase the implementation of biodynamics
on the ground so those are those are the areas that we identified and now we’re coming close to
having been through that for a year and so uh immediately following the conference we’re going
to be meeting again and saying okay we’ve had a year looking at those now we’ve had a chance to
bring everybody together which does that look like and then um how is it that we can um take the
knowledge that what we hear from the community and put that into practice as the national organization
to really move the movement forward how do we best serve the biodynamic movement how do we best
serve the planet that’s what we’re working on it’s it’s it’s so so exciting Sheila and I know that
many of us here at the Y honors community are engaged in some related similar projects and so I
can just feel the excitement and enthusiasm about what’s happening in our world right now like it’s
such a challenging time on the one hand and it’s such an extraordinarily hopeful and and
figurating time on the other and it is up from my perspective having been a a fan and an observer
of the biodynamic movement over these past several years um I got to say that I’m just I’m really
um energized around what’s happening and with your leadership and others in the uh leadership
and management and the board of the biodynamic demeter alliance it’s it’s just so uh invigorating
and and hopeful again to use that word uh the leadership you guys are exhibiting and uh what
what a what a fun wonderful uh opportunity we have in a handful of weeks here to get together
and celebrate in person thank you yeah I mean one of the roles that I had was I was the development
director from our inorganic which is um was started by super fondly who um has cowbro cheese and
um born Weber who was part of the original group that wrote the organic standard so these were
like the the four four parents of the organic movement were there and we’re in and um it was so
lovely to have the chance to work with them and that really inspired me to see what was possible
because this was 20 years ago and we were able by working with government agencies we were able
to create the first all organic county and the nation and we were able to really change people’s
ideas on who their farmers were you know by the time we were finished with or not finished but
you know as the years went on we had farmers where they would walk in the room and everybody would
stand up and get them a standing ovation and it was really fun to see that that change happened
in the community which wasn’t only great for the farmer it was really great for the community and
I really think that um we can do that is the by dynamic movement working with other
organizations that are allies that you know they may be by a dynamic they may be not by a dynamic
but they’re very much thinking along the same lines and working with local government working
with state governments you know we just need to shift people’s perception a little bit we need
it we need a paradigm shift where at this place there’s an amazing time in humanity and we
we need to we need to step in and be those leaders right so you know as we’re thinking about
all those children that are in these schools that we’re trying to find the gifts that they have
in these farmers that are looking at the gift of the land we need to turn to ourselves and think
okay what’s the gift that we’re supposed to be bringing back to this world we we landed on this
planet for a reason let’s use this time really wisely let’s make this place all that it can be
let’s help and lie them the wonderful world in which we live and that’s what I think this conference
can be that’s what the showcase can be because it’s going to take all kinds of people it’s going to
take people that are you know not everybody’s going to be a farmer but everybody eats and so we all
have an opportunity three times a day or more to make a decision as to what does our world look like
and that’s what we need to be thinking about all the time so absolutely wonderful Sheila what a joy
well thank you so much I know it’s an extremely busy time for you preparing in these last
few weeks ahead of the conference we’re so excited to have the opportunity to visit with you today
to share this with our audience and look forward to celebrating in person in a few weeks and
but before of course we’re going to record our shorter behind the scenes segment in just a few
minutes here Sheila but before signing off I just I want to thank you so much for taking the time
to be on the podcast and if there’s anything else you’d like to say to our audience my friend the
the floor is yours thank you so much mostly I’m just grateful to be here and I just really hope
as many people as possible whether they come for a day to the conference and they come to the
showcase or whatever it is that they’re able to do we want to see you there we want to build this
community we want to grow this tent to be as big as we possibly can so I really hope to see you
and everybody else and all your friends and neighbors at the conference in November
wonderful thanks so much Sheila bye the YonEarth community stewardship and sustainability podcast series is hosted by
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