An Action Research Project

How can the biodynamic principle of the farm organism be connected with agroforestry in smallholder subsistence farming in the Global South? This is the question being explored by the Section for Agriculture in a new action research project. Together with the LIMBUA Group and the SEKEM Group in Egypt, the project investigates how biodynamic agriculture and agroforestry can be combined to create resilient, productive, and locally adapted farming practices.

Over the past hundred years, biodynamic agriculture has accumulated valuable experience primarily on medium-sized, mixed farms in temperate climates. But other agricultural realities raise new questions: How can the principle of the farm organism be implemented on very small plots under intensive subsistence farming? And how can trees, shrubs, livestock, and annual crops interact in ways that create both ecological and economic resilience?

Agroforestry offers a promising approach. On a small area, different plants can be combined across several layers. Trees and shrubs not only provide additional sources of income and yields, but also create habitats, protect the soil, and can make an important contribution to the stability of the entire system. The horizontal diversity of a farm is complemented by vertical integration – making the farm organism more complex and more densely interconnected.

Acting and Researching Together: Action Research

Practice is at the heart of the project. It is not only measurements and data that will show what changes through biodynamic agroforestry. The experiences of farmers are equally important: What do they observe? How does the soil change? How do plants and yields develop? And what changes in people's everyday lives and perspectives?

An action research approach therefore combines observations, interviews, and agronomic assessments. Farmers are active partners in the research process. Together with the teams on the ground, the aim is to generate knowledge that can directly feed back into practice. In Kenya, this takes place in collaboration with the LIMBUA Group, and in Egypt with the SEKEM Group. In the long term, the project aims to develop an approach that can contribute to improving living conditions and strengthening smallholder communities in the Global South.

Knowledge Hub Established in Egypt

An important role is played by the “Associated Office of the Section for Agriculture at the Goetheanum, Egypt”, established at the Heliopolis University for Sustainable Development in Cairo. Its geographical proximity to the SEKEM Group's experimental and practical sites enables direct exchange and collaboration.

The office serves as a knowledge hub for biodynamic agroforestry. It connects experts, researchers, and practitioners, collects experiences, develops training opportunities, and makes the knowledge gained accessible within the biodynamic movement and beyond.

The office is headed by MSc Fatma Absorama, who has been working at Heliopolis University for eight years and is combining this work with her ongoing doctoral research. In Switzerland, BSc Gaudenz Hurter, an agronomist and biodynamic practitioner, is co-leading the project “Biodynamics meets Agroforestry.”

Rethinking the Farm Organism

The project is therefore also a process of development. It seeks to rethink the established biodynamic principle of the farm organism under different climatic, cultural, and social conditions. The combination of biodynamics and agroforestry could provide an important key to this.

By 2030, the project aims to evaluate which forms of tree-based biodynamic agriculture can prove successful in smallholder subsistence farming, and what contribution they can make to climate resilience, soil fertility, biodiversity, food security, income, and quality of life.