Land and Economy

The conference of the Section for Agriculture, to be held at the Goetheanum from 6 to 9 February, will focus on practice-oriented models of a sustainable and associative economy.

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Nature is the foundation of human life. The economy creates added values from natural resources. In the case of food these are existential, while industrially processed raw materials contribute to people’s prosperity.

Biodynamic farming strives to preserve the natural resources – soil, plants and animals – within the process of production and to improve their vitality, fertility and productivity. This is not possible in an industrial operation where the means of production lose in value and have to be written off.

Working on tasks together

As an area of the economy agriculture is suited to developing and implementing models of a sustainable and associative economy. The point of reference is the profitability of the fertile soil. In an association, all the partners in the supply chain – production, processing, wholesale and retail, consumer – work together. They develop a joint awareness of their task, assess the market in terms of quantities of goods, pricing and demand and regulate quality, quantity and price on that basis. They are also concerned with questions of land ownership, investment loans and the funding of breeding and research.

Further examples of applications include regional associative zones, economic communities of consumers and farms (community supported agriculture) as well as concepts such as Food Systems and True Cost Accounting.

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