Trauger Groh: In Support of Earth and Man - Natural Productivity
Monday 25th September
A talk by Alice Groh and Aonghus Gordon
Some aspects of the life and work of the late Trauger Groh (1932-2016)
Pioneer of the Community Supported Agriculture movement (CSA)
1300-1400: Biodynamic buffet lunch from Gables Farm (contributions towards costs welcome)
1400-1530: Talk and discussion
at The Field Centre
Tiltups End
Bath Road
Nailsworth
GL6 0QE
Phone: 07813 234623
Email: Chiara.bor...@rmt.org
This event is sponsored by Ruskin Mill Land Trust
Trauger Groh was born in Vienna in 1932 into a family involved with Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy. His father was a Christian Community priest and his mother was a Eurythmist. At age three he moved with his family to the beautiful Baroque city of Dresden, Germany, the destruction of which he witnessed on the night of February 14th, 1945. After the end of the war the family moved to a farm owned by his grandfather in north Germany and he returned to Waldorf School in Stuttgart. In his early 20's Trauger became the responsible farmer in charge of the family property, taking his first practical interest in Biodynamic methods. In 1972 he formed a partnership with two other independent farm families and together they worked on the Buschberghof near Hamburg on land that was held in trust and that was surrounded by a support group of thirty families. The families had each received a line of credit from the Anthroposophical GLS Bank that they in turn placed at the disposal of the farmers as their working capital for the year. They also guaranteed an extra 1000 DM each as a kind of safety net for the farm operation. In 1985 Trauger moved to Wilton, New Hampshire, USA and together with his wife Alice, fellow farmers Lincoln Geiger and Anthony Graham and 28 families in the community, founded the Temple-Wilton Community Farm, one of two pioneering CSA farms in the United States. He spent the next years, in addition to being an active farmer, with lecture and advisory tours and workshops on the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) concept and Biodynamic Agriculture, writing the two books Farms of Tomorrow; Community Support Farms, Farm Supported Communities and Farms of Tomorrow Revisited, the latter of which is still in print. Both Biodynamics and the CSA concept have found an ever increasing receptive audience in the United States and around the world in the last thirty years. Trauger Groh crossed the threshold of death on July 27th, 2016. |
