Living Green: Growing happy plants and healthy food from the ground up My fellow Tri-City News columnist Karen Curtis, who writes Market Fresh monthly, paid tribute last fall when our community lost biodynamic farming pioneer Mary Forstbauer. Mary passionately preached healthy soils, a practice the Forstbauer Family Natural Food Farm in Chilliwack has been doing for nearly three decades. (Saturday April 2nd, 2016 — The Tri-City News - Port Coquitlam, British Columbia Canada)

Niwot's Shepherd Valley Waldorf to slash tuition, hold steady for 3 years Shepherd Valley Waldorf, a small private school in Niwot, is lowering its tuition by about 40 percent next school year and promises not to raise it for the next three years. The goal, school officials said, is to make private school education more accessible and increase diversity at the preschool through eighth-grade school. (Saturday April 2nd, 2016 — Boulder Daily Camera - Boulder, Colorado USA)

Bill Zacharkiw: Wine industry is growing organically Organic wine consumption worldwide is growing faster than wine consumption as a whole. According to the SAQ, sales rose from $29.4 million to $34.7 million between 2014 and 2015. So while wine sales have essentially flattened out, organic wine sales rose 18 per cent. This has led to more vineyards being converted from conventional to organic, or biodynamic, growing methods. (Friday April 1st, 2016 — Montreal Gazette - Montreal, Quebec Canada)

Camphill part of World Wide Weave Camphill Communities has a lot to celebrate this year and most of it comes to fruition this month. The first, a global textile exhibition called World Wide Weave, arrives in Barrie next week. It coincides with the annual Community Action Award tribute dinner, which this year honours internationally renowned artist, goldsmith, teacher and humanitarian, Donald Stuart. ... The Barrie Camphill marks its 30th anniversary this year. (Friday April 1st, 2016 — The Barrie Examiner - Barrie, Ontario Canada)

FDA Sued Over Approval Of Genetically Engineered Salmon Nearly a dozen fishing and environmental groups have filed suit against the Food and Drug Administration in an effort to block its recent approval of genetically modified salmon. The plaintiffs, represented by the Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice, argue that by green-lighting the first-ever genetically altered animal slated for human consumption, the FDA violated the law and ignored potential risks to wild salmon populations, the environment and fishing communities. (Thursday March 31st, 2016 — Huffington Post - USA)

Speech and music Sounds that were previously incomprehensible to us now become the meaningful language of nature. In 1912, Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian initiate, scientist, artist and philosopher, brought a new art of movement into existence on the foundation of anthroposophy, which he called eurythmy. ... Eurythmy is speech and music made visible through conscious movements of the limbs. Eurythmy uses for its expression the most divine of all instruments, the human being. (Thursday March 31st, 2016 — Economic Times (blog) - The Times of India)

Trending: What to drink from Italy As part of this event, dozens of wine producers brought their wines to show to prospective importers. You would think that the best Italian wines already have importers. But that�s not always the case. Some wineries are from up-and-coming areas of Italy, some are small producers, and some are new. And many make wines that are trending in the world of wine: organic, biodynamic, ros�, and the new col fondo prosecco. (Thursday March 31st, 2016 — Palate Pres )

Swiss to recognise homeopathy as legitimate medicine Homeopathy, holistic medicine, herbal medicine, acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine will acquire the same status as conventional medicine by May 2017 when it comes to health insurance. (Tuesday March 29th, 2016 — swissinfo.ch)

Demand for organic, biodynamic products continues to grow "The increasing demand for organic products means that bigger volumes are destined for industrial processing with a high added value. In addition, over the past couple of years, we have introduced biodynamic products, which are very popular especially in Northern Europe," explains Antonio Codo, sales manager for Veritas Biofrutta srl. Veritas Biofrutta is the Gruppo Mazzoni company dedicated entirely to the sale of organic and biodynamic products. It was established in 2002 and currently manages around 15,000 tons of produce a year (apples, pears, kiwis, citrus fruit, vegetables and processed produce), representing 16% of the entire turnover of the group. (Friday March 25th, 2016 — FreshPlaza - The Netherlands)

After 115 Years, Scotland Is Coal-Free The Longannet power station, the last and largest coal-fired power plant in Scotland, ceased operations Thursday. What once was the largest coal plant in Europe shut down after 46 years before the eyes of workers and journalists, who gathered in the main control room. (Thursday March 24th, 2016 — Think Progress- USA)

Near-Extinct Sumatran Rhino Spotted In Indonesian Borneo For The First Time In 40 Years For the first time in 40 years, conservationists have made physical contact with a Sumatran rhino in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo: (Thursday March 24th, 2016 — Huffington Post - USA)

Worldwide Renewable Energy Investment Hits A New Record Renewable energy investment set a new world record in 2015, with emerging economies led by China topping the investment of developed nations for the first time, according to a United Nations-backed report unveiled Thursday. Last year, the world invested $286 billion in green energy � some 3 percent more than the last record set in 2011 � mostly on wind and solar, according to the report ... (Thursday March 24th, 2016 — Think Progress- USA)

Seed Banks Are Supposed To Ensure Food Security, But They�re Missing Crucial Pieces In a study published Monday in Nature Plants, a coalition of international scientists embarked on a first-of-its-kind effort to map the representation of crop wild relatives � crops that are genetically related but have evolved apart from domestication � in seed banks worldwide. They found that for the majority of the 81 crops they looked at, wild relatives were insufficiently represented in seed banks (also called gene banks), signaling a crucial disconnect between seed banks and the potential genetic diversity available to farmers and breeders. (Wednesday March 23rd, 2016 — Think Progress- USA)

Feds to Study More Bees For Protection as Endangered Species The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced on March 15 that it will consider whether to include the Western bumblebee and the Yellow-banded bumblebee on the list of protected species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Currently, no bees are listed as threatened or endangered under the ESA. That�s a little surprising, given all the attention Colony Collapse Disorder and bee disappearance have been getting for the last few years. (Monday March 21st, 2016 — Care2.com)

Maryland Bees Just Caught A Break The Maryland House passed a bill recently that would implement a partial ban on neonicotinoids, a widely-used class of pesticides that�s been shown to harm honeybees. The bill would still allow farmers to apply neonics on their crops, but would ban everyday consumers from purchasing neonics for their home gardens or other use. (Friday March 18th, 2016 — Think Progress- USA)

Whole Foods Market Arroyo Parkway Partners with Pasadena Waldorf School to Create Biodynamic Learning Gardens On Thursday, March 24, Whole Foods Market Arroyo Parkway in Pasadena will be donating 5% of their total net sales for the day, to support the creation of the new all-school learning biodynamic gardens at Pasadena Waldorf School. The garden site, approximately 5,000 square feet, sits on the school�s newly acquired 2nd campus on Mendocino Street in Altadena. (Tuesday March 15th, 2016 — Pasadena Now - Pasadena, California USA)

Americans Are Redefining Farming, And HuffPost Wants To Hear About It We�re working on a new project about changes in American agriculture. We want to hear from farmers � their hopes, their fears, their challenges and successes � in order to tell a more complete story. If you wish to be a part of this, please send us an email describing your work to [email protected] with the subject line �Farming In America.� (Tuesday March 15th, 2016 — Huffington Post - USA)

Biodynamic French Rh�nes offer aromatic, fresh wines For example, winegrower Matthieu Barret has, since 1998, made terrific estate-grown wines from Cornas and Saint-Joseph, two highly regarded northern Rh�ne crus famed for producing terrific 100-percent syrah-based reds. As part of his dedicated approach, Barret follows organic and biodynamic principles. (Tuesday March 15th, 2016 — Tribune-Review )

Some schools take �byte� out of early education If you observed two elementary-school classes, one with children digging holes outside and the other where the kids were sitting at laptop computers gazing into monitors, in which �classroom� would you guess more learning is taking place? Educators who subscribe to the Waldorf progressive model of learning would �dig� the former natural environment over the latter. (Monday March 14th, 2016 — The Daily News Journal - Murfreesboro, Tennessee USA)

Biodynamic agriculture fueling neem oil market From pesticide and fungicide to soap making and cosmetics, neem oil is used in a wide variety of applications. (Saturday March 12th, 2016 — WhaTech - India)