Biodynamic farmers and gardeners know the power of nourishing food and the intimate work with nature that allows it to be so nourishing. But how can potential biodynamic farmers and gardeners learn? One way is by joining Camphill Village Kimberton Hills’ program of the Camphill Academy. That practice integrated program, Social Agriculture Biodynamics, starts with the basics—a Foundation Year that undergirds potential farmers and gardeners with Rudolf Steiner’s unique ways of coming to learn about the earth – and ourselves! Following a progression that includes hands-on practica in our CSA gardens, orchard, dairy farm, or herb garden, this college-level course of studies is ultimately practical. To become a biodynamic farmer or gardener means more than following recipes! Or a set of instructions! It involves us in the very nature of seeds, soil health, plant and animal care, social dynamics, and knowing ourselves and the world more deeply. See more on the websites: www.camphill.edu and Camphillkimberton.org.
“The production of healthy, biodynamic foods from gardens and farms has been an integral part of most Camphill communities. It’s not difficult to discern why. Rudolf Steiner, working together with his student Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, was a pioneer in developing Biodynamics, a radically new approach to agriculture which emphasized the importance of producing and consuming food using natural, organic methods to produce maximal nutritional benefit for the consumer, while fostering a healing, reverential attitude towards the Earth and the flora and fauna with which we share our land and our existence. Alaric and Mabel Pew Myrin, who developed the estate which later became Camphill Village Kimberton Hills, were particularly interested in Biodynamics, and brought Dr. Pfeiffer to America, where he settled in the Kimberton area and, in the years before WW2, established the first organic farming and gardening training in the USA.”
“When we reflect on political and social movements of the 1960s and 70s, few of us think about changes in agriculture. Yet, in the Americas, Asia, and Europe, these decades saw the seed of an idea that – six decades later – continues to bear fruit. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), where consumers support agriculturalists and the land, and in turn receive a share of the harvest or products, grew from multiple sources and impulses. Among the earliest were” Camphills and “the innovations of Black horticulturalists, especially Booker T. Whatley, in the U.S. South. Denied federal loans and grants, Black communities in the 1960s banded together in “Clientele Membership Clubs” that involved members fronting money for local farmers in return for shares of the crops. Economic reasons necessitated these precursors to the modern CSA. Elsewhere, environmental concerns played a role, such as in Japan, in the 1960s and 70s, when women concerned about pesticide use banded together to form community farm initiatives called Teikei. Politics prompted community agriculture movements in Chile in the early 1970s, when Salvador Allende wrested control of large estates from wealthy landowners and redistributed them among peasant farmworker unions before Pinochet’s 1973 coup brought vicious reprisals. By the 1960s and 70s, the same decades in which CSA-like movements emerged throughout the world, cooperative land trusts in Germany and Switzerland combined Steiner’s emphasis on economic and social equity with his agricultural philosophies. Two important early CSAs came into being in 1986 at Indian Line Farm, in Massachusetts, and the Temple-Wilton Community Farm in New Hampshire; in fact, the term “Community Supported Agriculture” is attributed to Robyn Van En of Indian Line Farm. But local CSAs followed soon after. The Kimberton CSA on Seven Stars Road began the following year, 1987, along with CVKH’s own, which although already a CSA for the village, opened, then, to the wider community.”
“Starting a garden, as well as a farm, is often one of the first endeavors of a new Camphill community. The nutritional value of the food, the healthy physical activity in producing it, and the great satisfaction of being intimately involved in nourishing one’s fellow community members, all bring great value to the physical, emotional and social life of everyone involved, but especially to those, who prior to coming to Camphill were lifelong recipients of care and therapy, but seldom if ever had the opportunity to experience the deep self esteem which comes from being productive and caring for others. Ask a person here what they do, and you will hear, with great pride, “I’m a farmer, a gardener, a baker, a weaver!” Our CSA is an extension of this healing activity, bringing daily social contact with our friends and neighbors, and providing a wonderful way of introducing Camphill to the wider community. And sales from our CSA and dairy, as well as our craft workshops, provide a substantial contribution to the daily running costs of the community, helping to foster self-sufficiency.” (Excerpts from Dr. Richard Fried’s and Sandy Bardsley’s articles for the Camphill Village Kimberton Hills Spring 2025 Newsletter)
