Will Work for Wine: Visiting a Biodynamic Vineyard in Tuscany Andrea Zanfei and Valentina Libri's days are guided by the rhythms of nature. They work with lunar movements and seasons to make natural wines that reflect the personality of their land. Join Beers and Beans' Randy Kalp and Bethany Salvon as they volunteer at this beautiful biodynamic winery in Tuscany. (Monday March 30th, 2015 — Conde Nast Traveler )

How Corporate Agribusiness Is Quietly Seizing The Heartland with ‘Right To Farm’ Laws The vague language in right-to-farm amendments can prevent states or localities from regulating any number of issues, from pollution, pesticide use, or animal abuse, no matter how much evidence there may be that a certain practice or company is harming the environment. It also makes it much harder to stop factory farms from poisoning water or air quality with noxious animal waste, or even keep track of repeat offenders. (Friday March 27th, 2015 — ThinkProgress -USA)

The Real Reason to Worry About GMOs In a recent column, the New York Times' Mark Bittman makes an important point about the controversy around genetically modified foods. "[T]o date there's little credible evidence that any food grown with genetic engineering techniques is dangerous to human health," he writes. Yet the way the technology has been used—mainly, to engineer crops that can withstand herbicides—is deeply problematic, he argues. ... humanity has thrived for millennia despite the scourge of fast-browning apples and potatoes. The same isn't true for ever-increasing deluges of toxic herbicides. (Thursday March 26th, 2015 — MotherJones - USA)

A Menacing Mix In Antibiotic Resistance: Herbicides, Heavy Metals And Factory Farms Two common Big Agriculture production practices -- feeding antibiotics to livestock and spraying herbicides on conventional crops -- each face condemnation from the environmental community. And there's been plenty of new fodder in the last week: One study predicted that antibiotic use in livestock will soar by two-thirds globally from 2010 to 2030, and another declared that Monsanto's popular Roundup herbicide is "probably carcinogenic to humans." (Tuesday March 24th, 2015 — Huffington Post - USA)

Farms That Save Space for Flowers Give Bees a Boost In 2005, England introduced incentives to farmers to plant more bee-friendly flowers on their land. Similar incentives also exist in the E.U. These agri-environmental schemes have been shown to attract bees a provide them with a good source of food, but the new paper shows for the first time that they are also associated with increased populations. (Tuesday March 24th, 2015 — Care2Causes)

Costa Rica Has Gotten All Of Its Electricity From Renewables For 75 Days Straight The Latin American country hasn’t had to use fossil fuels at all so far in 2015, due to heavy rains that have kept hydroelectric power plants going strong. Wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy have also helped power the country this year. (Monday March 23rd, 2015 — ThinkProgress -USA)

Terrebonne farm launches “Bee School” Would-be beekeepers learn the trade. (Sunday March 15th, 2015 — Bend Bulletin - Central Oregon, USA)

Araku Valley to become synonymous with mangoes too “This is the largest bio-dynamic plot in the world, spread over 25,000 acres, and nowhere this sort of topography is seen. More than 2,000 Girijan families here are cultivating coffee in the biodynamic method and getting very good results and much better income. We are encouraging them to grow mango trees, Banginapalli variety, and the results would be good. Seven lakh mango saplings have been planted during the last three years”, CEO of Naandi Foundation Manoj Kumar said. (Saturday March 14th, 2015 — The Hindu - India)

Trucco shipping biodynamic kiwifruit In biodynamic agriculture, crops are grown organically and farms are considered self-sustaining ecosystems. Everything needed to grow crops comes from the farm and is recycled, according to a news release. (Friday March 13th, 2015 — The Packer - )

Beyond tests and busywork to enlightened learning Though Minnesota Waldorf School students excel at standardized tests and go on to be successful in college and beyond, it's not because the school has a testing-oriented curriculum or burdens kids and their parents with hours of homework each day. In fact, it's the opposite — the school looks to give its students a stimulating and enriching classroom curriculum that's void of rigamarole, memorization and iPads. (Thursday March 12th, 2015 — Lillie News - St Paul, Minnesota USA)

Station Bistro in Kimberton to start cooking school for children “(I’m) creating a farm-to-garden-to-table for kids to grow and manage food while also learning business skills, day-to-day running of a place, inventory — a place where they can gain skills and experience,” Nancy Miller said. The non-profit, private school is based on Waldorf school–like principles called Parzival Academy. Now accepting children for grades 1–6 for fall of 2015, the school hopes to also encompass an artisan tech high school. (Thursday March 12th, 2015 — Daily Local News - West Chester, Pennsylvania USA)

Is Organic Wine Better for You? The Environmental Working Group ranks grapes No. 3 on the dirty dozen list due to the high level of pesticide residue found on conventionally farmed grapes. Thus, the nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer advocacy organization encourages shoppers to purchase organically grown grapes as the healthier alternative. (Wednesday March 11th, 2015 — Healthy Eats (blog) - Food Network USA)

Hormone-disrupting chemicals ‘cost billions’ Common chemicals that disrupt human hormones could be costing more than €150bn ($165.4bn; £108.5bn) a year in damage to human health in Europe, a series of studies claims. (Saturday March 7th, 2015 — BBC online - UK)

Educating for a Democratic Society Waldorf education is only one of what could be many possible forms of social education that can be developed based upon Steiner’s ideas around threefoldness. The effectiveness of any education derives from its leaders’ and teachers’ willingness to share a vision of the aims of education, a common and constantly-renewed image of students and their development, an inspiring curriculum that respects teachers’ professionalism and autonomy, and a common method of teaching democratic aims (Thursday March 5th, 2015 — 3BL Media (press release) - Chestnut Ridge, New York USA)