Featured Farm

Patrick Worms gives his testimony after a visit to Stéphane Delogne of Highland D'Ardenne, who runs highland cattle in a sylvopastoral system in Bertrix, in the Belgian Ardennes.

The former Sylva-Saltus-Ager land use system of the Romans, by which the forest, the pasture and the crop field were established in separate areas, have been integrated today into the so-called Dehesa land use system of southwestern Spain.

How diversity survives in the Hungarian agrarian landscape......and why it is so difficult to deal with

Andrzej Majerski’s farm is an organic family farm in Southern Poland (Małopolska region, Łącko district) of 24 ha which includes 10 ha of arable land (mowing-grazing usage), 1 ha of old orchards, 1.5 of new orchards and 12 ha of forest. The conversion of the farm to an organic system started in 2005 to provide value-added food products and improve farm income at the same time.

The orchards are grazed by geese and Comisana dairy sheep, while Alpine goats and Jersey cows are kept out to prevent damage to the fruit trees. All animals rotate through pastures and the forest, grazing on native grasses, forest trees and acorns.

The Freitag's have traditionally been dealing with agroforestry systems for a long time, even though they were not previously referred to as such. The company can look back on three generations of experience in willow cultivation.

The Biolandhof Braun is a much-diversified organic farm with 58 ha of arable land, 17 ha of permanent grassland and some forest. In 1988, the conversion to organic farming took place with the aim of respecting and preserving the environment and resources as well as creation. The interest in closing nutrient cycles lead him via forest garden systems and permaculture to agroforestry.

Our goal at Lynbreck is to build a profitable, small farm business where every decision outcome must have a positive environmental impact.

The two featured farms are both based in the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein - Germany’s most sparsely wooded federal state, located between the Baltic and the Northern Sea in Northwestern Germany. In 2017, both farms won an award for their well-maintained ‘Knicks’.