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Grants Available for Food Projects
The Food Chapter of the Awesome Foundation is now accepting applications to further food awesomeness in the universe. They give out $1,000 micro-grants once a month.
Anyone can apply and any project topic - research, technology, marketing - may be funded. The Awesome Foundation pools money from micro-trustees and provides upfront grants with no strings attached. Autonomous chapters offer funding in specific geographic areas or for specific issue areas.
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Scholarships Available for Biodynamic Courses, Events and Advising
Would you like to deepen your understanding of biodynamics? Could you benefit from bringing an advisor to your farm to help you incorporate or improve biodynamic practices? The Biodynamic Scholarship Fund is here to help!
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Malaby attended the JPI Fall Preparations workshop in 2012
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Support is available from the Biodynamic Scholarship Fund biodynamic for conferences and events, courses and advising.
Any member of the Biodynamic Association is eligible to apply for a scholarship. For more information and to access the online application, please visit our website.
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Year long biodynamic courses begin in September at The Pfeiffer Center in New York, Rudolf Steiner College in California and Saugeen School for Sacred Agriculture in Ontario.
Now is the time to apply for a scholarship if you're ready to participate but lack the needed funds. You can view dates and details these and of all the NABDAP participating classroom courses on our website.
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With Buycott, a new app for smartphones, you can scan any grocery item and see its corporate family tree on your phone screen.
"Scan a box of Splenda sweetener, for instance, and you'll see its parent, McNeil Nutritionals, is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.
"Even more impressively, you can join user-created campaigns to boycott business practices that violate your principles rather than single companies. One of these campaigns, Demand GMO Labeling, will scan your box of cereal and tell you if it was made by one of the 36 corporations that donated more than $150,000 to oppose the mandatory labeling of genetically modified food."
Thanks to Seth Jordan for sharing this link!
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Thanks for subscribing to the BING e-newsletter! Have something you'd like to share with others? Send it along to me at bing@biodynamics.com and I will include it in a future issue.
- Thea Maria Carlson, Education Program Coordinator |
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Connections Deepen at the Summer BING Meetup at Swallow Valley Farm
 Sitting in the dinning room of a modern designed "farm house of the future" was the perfect way to kick off the Summer BING meeting. Sarah King, manager of Live Power Farm, and I co-hosted the BING Meet-Up at the Summer BDANC (Biodynamic Association of Northern California) meeting at Swallow Valley Farm on Saturday, June 22nd.
We started the meeting by having everyone say their name and using one word to describe something that inspires them about Biodynamics. With about 30 people from all ages and interest in Biodynamic Agriculture it was powerful to fill the room with so many inspiring words such as...rhythm, compost, cosmos, animals, vitality, etc.
 Our discussion topic for the meeting was "How do we support the next generation of Biodynamic Farmers". After two world cafe sessions each person met with one other person (who they hadn't met with before) to write down their ONE main idea/concern that developed. Those were then posted on the glass windows over looking the land into similar themes.
Through that process 4 main themes formed. Yet a unifying impulse was "Alternative Farm Communities" as a model for social and economic viability. Here are some of the ideas:
- Meeting place for health care, education, shelter, nutrition, arts, economics, elder care
- Alternative models to land access, economics, human relationships, health care, exchange of goods, leadership
- "Farm as Heart"
- Micro-enterprises
- "Stronger on more legs"
- Commitment to common goals has to be linking string
- How do we bring land and people who want to create farm communities together?
- Move away from purely economic models
- Diversified revenue streams through education, crops, therapy medicine, craft products, tourism, etc
- Cooperative models
- Group living/shared ownership
- Producing more than just food
- Increasing connections to our food and food systems
Definitive solutions and answers were not the goal, but putting out the ideas, inspirations and concerns for something new. Yearning for a connection to one another and nature that is grander and different than what we have now....was very inspiring. View more photos from the meetup on our website.
Want to host your own BING meetup? Learn how here.
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Job & Internship Opportunities
For more details, additional openings, or to share an opportunity, please visit our forums.
My husband and I own a small certified organic farm (4 acres) and we grow tropical fruits (avocados, blood oranges, Pakistani mulberries, pomegranates, cheramoyas, passion fruit and figs etc.) We also have plenty of nettles and horsetail growing freely! We would love to open our farm opportunity to a young, aspiring biodynamic student who might like to teach biodynamic farming at the institute. We have a separate trailer and could offer free room and board.
Philadelphia Community Farm has openings for one or two people who are interested in an end of the season CSA internship that also has a focus on season extension in our whole trees greenhouse and mobile high tunnel. 2/3 of our 72 share CSA this year are going to low income inner city families and food shelves through a new partnership with Urban Ventures and churches in the Twin Cities. Interns have direct involvement with people from many cultures who all enjoy and appreciate healthy food and access to the farm and nature.
Lakeside School, located on the 200-year old Black Kettle Farm in Essex, NY, is seeking to sub-let farmland to a farmer dedicated to biodynamic farming practices and interested in establishing an affiliation with the school as farm educator. Modest cottage housing is included on the farm. Black Kettle Farm is a 230-acre organic Wild Farm nestled between Lake Champlain and the Adirondack Mountains. It includes more than 100 acres of tillable farmland, large barn, equipment sheds, tool/garden shed and root cellar, stream and pond, established apple trees and vineyard, fenced-in pastures, and modest greenhouse.
Work with our trained seedsman, Nathan Corymb, in selecting, harvesting, threshing, handling though all the stages, cleaning and then germination testing our vegetable seed grown here on the farm. Includes both annuals and biennials, both dry and wet processing. In 1991 Nathan trained with the first Biodynamic Seed Company in the world in Switzerland for one year. He and his wife, Beth went on to found Turtle Tree Biodynamic Seed Initiative. They returned to Beth's family's farm in 2010 to grow seed and make more biodynamic seed available. Join them to learn what they have gleaned throughout the past 20 years.
Raphael Garden at Rudolf Steiner College has positions for 4 apprentices annually. Apprenticeships last one or two entire years, beginning either in Spring or early Fall. Raphael Garden is a 3-acre, Demeter-certified biodynamic farm, supporting seasonal fruit and year-round vegetables, a large seed saving operation, farm animals and natural beekeeping, in a beautiful, serene, and yet very productive setting. The farm is supported by the 40+ shareholders of the Raphael Garden CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). A model of biodynamics in action, the farm provides for most of its needs from within the farm individuality.
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Upcoming Events
For details on these events and more, or to share your event, visit our calendar.
September 7-8:
, Paraná, Brazil
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Biodynamic Initiative for the Next Generation
www.biodynamics.com/bing
BING is a program of the Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association
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