Module 3405 470 Organic Food Systems

and Concepts
Winter
semester
2015/2016

L
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Written by: Rallou Natsouli, Dora upari, Draga Jovanovi &

2nd November 2015.
Istvn Hudk

HISTORY ( Istvn Hudk)

same,

Oberschwaben. From the beginning it

was

conventional farm raising pigs and

agricultural

growing materials which remained the

except

conversion

Hans Holland, the farm owner

he Holland Farm is a diversified family farm located in Baden-Wrttembergs

that

to

it

became organic. They started with

organic

farming at the end of 80' (the exact year

is 1989. , since when they

are

guidelines

The

converting lasted for three years, one

third of the land each

year they switched to organic. During

conversion there were no

pigs on the farm because market was too

low at that time. They

started raising pigs again few years after

switching

farming. In the beginning that was very

).

to

organic

following

organic

Naturland

low scale with just around ten to thirty pigs because there was no market for ecological raised
pigs in those years. By consumers, pork was not popular as one of the organic products. But
nowadays, organic pork market is very good in Germany so the farm continuously work better, so
the emphasis is on the pork production.

ANIMAL PRODUCTION (Rallou Natsouli)

The Holland Farm is a developing farm, it began with 10 farms and now it has 40 farms in its
possession. The most important point of this farm is the production of organic pork. Today, there
are 3 stables with almost 350-400 pigs. Moreover, there is a smaller breed of turkeys,
approximately 60-70 animals. Finally, there are 2 cows and 2 calves, 10 chickens, 1 rooster and
some Icelandic horses which live at the same farm. So, the market products that the animals
produce are pork and beef meat, pastured calf and turkeys.
Concerning the pigs, we can observe two categories, the younger and the older. Older pigs live at
an open air stable, they enjoy fresh air and not affected by the cold. They are estimated at 1000
pigs per year and every week 20 pigs are sold when they became 120 kg (it takes approximately 7
months). The castration of the male pigs is a normal situation, otherwise injuries may be caused.

Open air stables for pigs

A very important difference between organic and

conventional pork is that in organic there is no use
of medicines. The only exception is the medicine
Improvac but it doesnt cause side effects and it
suppresses the production of male hormones. The
second category, younger pigs, live on warm
temperatures with heating floors in their stalls.
Regarding to their feed there are 4 types. Their
main feed is triticale which consists the 60% of their nutrition. When the farmers run out of
triticale, they replace it with barley or wheat. Also, they eat pig beans but the disadvantage is that
beans dont have all the valuable ingredients (like amino acids). Organic soil and potato protein
(not organic) are other good options. Potatoes are at a rate of 2-3% (maximum 5%) and their
advantage is that they offer proteins and not fat. Finally, the pigs fed by grass flower and it is
important to be cut early, because it must be young grass in order to offer high protein amount.
But this is an experimental feed yet. At both categories, pigs must be born and grow up at this
farm in order to consider them as organic.
Concerning the turkeys, they consist a small flock of 70 animals and all of them are sold for
Christmas (from October until December). They should be 5-6 kg in order to be sold and that
takes almost 6 weeks. They can live outdoors as they are resistant to bad weather conditions.
Regarding to their feed, they eat pellets (buying from organic feed markets), organic corn/soil and
also wheat/triticale/beans. Its really important these feeds to have all the essential mineral
components inside.
If somebody is interested in buying the organic products of this farm, there are two ways. Firstly,
some of the products are sold directly on farm after communication with the farmers. However,
the majority of these products are sold either by the regional supermarkets or by the Association
for Organic Agriculture, Naturland, which promotes organic farming regionally, nationally and
worldwide. But in the case of turkeys, they are sold only directly from the farm.

BOIGAS PLANT & CROP PRODUCTION (Draga Jovanovi)

1.Biogas plant
1.a Development of idea Its well known that main issue in organic farming is nitrogen
availability. Large percentage of it comes from the air and gets fixed by legume root bacteria. So
every five-six years on the farms fields is grown clover, like its main source . Earlier it was a
habit to cut clover 3-4 times a year and leave it on the field. But that was a wrong step-next
generation of clover grew bad and also nitrogen got wasted by evaporation. So, twelve years ago
farm owners got idea of processing clover grass into heat and electricity, and also as a residue
now they have biogas slurry as a very valuable fertilizer which they wouldn't have otherwise.
Also, this project goes hand in hand with the idea of holism and firm cohesion and interaction of
different forms of production on the farm, making a closed, efficient cycle.
1.b Description of the process and organic matter used
Organic matter is thrown into the container and then moved
up by elevator to digester with temperature inside of 45C,
which is full of methanogenic bacteria, i.e. bacteria that
Cl
produce methane out of organic matter. The biogas contains
ov
50% of methane after the digestion. Afterwards, gas is stored
in
er
rubber gasholder and the engine burns the biogas like a diesel
engine, produces energy with a generator with heat as a
gr
nusproduct that can be used to heat the objects on the farm
as
and also to dry grains in summer time after being harvested.
s
The first component of feed material is clover- grass silage.
a
The second component that is used is a manure that is every
n
d
day taken and put into digester so there are no big piles
throughout the farm. First 2-3 years they relayed only of these
two components but they realized its not easy to digest it
its a
fibery material, also, it is difficult to pump it , nitrogen transforms into ammonia which is
poisonous for bacteria. So additionally they are using corn silage-the result is very good, it
represents great improvement in digesting process so nowadays they put about 5 % of it into
digester every day. The corn is provided by they own production, taking place on 2 ha. Its good
that they are independent producers, because otherwise they should buy corn silage (even non
organic allowed to certain grade, but that permitted percentage gets lower by the regulations
every year).
Its important to mention that bacteria dont like variation in feed- they prefer same ingredients,
same temperature, same movement-so every cut get silaged, preferably young cutted because
digestibility is higher than , making it most suitable for bacteria.

Surface under the corn is already mentioned and 35-40 ha of clover and grass are enough to run
the process for whole year since it is small capacity biogas plant,with electric power of 65 kW
(450 000 kWh energy/year). In Germany can be found bg plants of 500 kW or even 1MW, but
they run with corn silage mainly. During the year inputs are following: clover grass silage-1200 t,
manure 300-400 t and 200 t of corn silage.

1.c Management of obtained products

10 % of electricity used on the farm, rest sold to public energy grid. The maintenance of the plant
is reimbursed by sold energy. 30-40 % of burning biogas transforms into energy and 2/3 into heat.
Owner points out that its important for biogas plants to be efficient in heat consumption-heating
houses, or even greenhouses, drying woodchips, grains or slurry and selling it like fertilizer are
some of the heat-using options.

2. Crop production
Crop production has an important share in overall production as a source of income (slightly
more than 50 % of harvested products are sold for human consumption-bread grains), and feed
for the animals (Triticale, beans, peas).
2.a Current situation on the field On one parcel is seeded wheat (one week ago), on the other
spelt (three days ago). Before sowing the remainings of clover were plowed, than finely prepared
seed bed with rotating harrow. It is very important to remove remaining parts of clover to prevent
it from growing further. Since the seeds have still not germinated above the ground it is possible
to use comb harrow as a measure of fight against weeds (so called blind-howing).
2.b Preservation and popularization of old species

Three different types of old speciesspelt (T.spelta), emmer (T.dicoccum),

einkorn (T. monococcum)-have also a
significant role in production. Spelt
already has a long tradition of
growing, and despite the fact the yield
encouraging
of emmer and einkorn is not so high ,
indigenous species
still is economical to cultivate them since a lot of bakeries are willing to buy them for a higher
price. The owners have multiplied their own spelt and emmer seeds, while einkorn seeds come
from northern Germany. These species, growing high are less susceptible to diseases. Problem of
bending is not present if the amount of nitrogen is controlled.

2.c Soil compaction issue Soils of this region are vulnerable to compaction-wet in lower layers
and loamy, with amount of clay increasing with a depth. As small as possible tractors with wide
tyres for placing the pressure are used for easy works, but what can be avoid are there is slury
tank of 10 m3, combines for harvesting, choppers for grass that is all very heavy. Soil originates
from the older ice ages so share of lime is lower. But Ca-bridges are necessary for making soil
particles more stabile, so liming is important measure for improving physical characteristics of
soil.
2.d Crop rotation Rotation scheme is the following: 1-2 years clover- grass (depending on
weed presence; grains with higher nitrogen demand-wheat or spelt; grains with slightly lower
nitrogen demand-triticale, ruy or oat at the end leguminous not N demanding plantsbeans or
peas, after 2-3 years-one year of triticale or ruy. So in 5-6 years cycle begins again with the
clover.
Cover crops for summer seeded crops are Facelia, niger seeds, grasses, radish, sunflower,
buckwheat. Leguminous plants are not recommended like cover crops because of potential
problem with fungi contamination.

MARKETS ( Dora upari )

Major inputs purchased for the farm are seeds, feeds, fertilizers and the piglets. Some of
Nat
url
position not having to buy all of the necessary seeds. All the legume
an
d,
seeds are bought and some amount of the clover and grass seeds
sig
which are very expensive. In total cost for the seeds that would be
nif
around 20 000 / year. Feeds that are bought are mineral feed, potato
can
t
protein and the soy for 30 000 / year. From buying fertilizers there
par
are lime and phosphorus. Lime is not very expensive and costs around 5 000 /year, but the
ner

the seeds are produced on the farm, which puts them in suitable

phosphorus stand for 10 000 15 000 / year. Major input are definitely piglets; costing 140 /
each and over the year 900 - 1 000 of them are bought, so in the final calculation it would reach
amount of 140 000 / year just for the piglets. The purchases are organized cooperatively
between the breeders and the raisers, so when they fix a price for their pigs, part from that price is
going to the piglet producers. Every year they have a meeting about the prices, which depend on
the market price for the feeds that year.

Farm's final products have Naturland certification. While grain and pork are primarily
sold through the Naturland Marketing Company (it is coordinated by them, they manage the flow
of the pigs; they tell the farm when they should slaughter the pigs), both can also be bought
directly on the farm. Marketed products are pork, pastured calf, beef, turkey, as well as whole
grains. All turkeys are sold directly to the consumers for Christmas. The price of pork is 3,5 /
kg (after slaughtering, almost 20 pigs per week), for the turkey is 10 / kg, for the wheat and the
beans (but they don't sell the beans, sometimes they have to buy them) is 35 / 100kg, and the
most valuable cereals for the farm : einkorn and emmer they sell for 160 / 100kg (packed in 50
kg bags). As for the biogas plant, 10% of produced electricity is used on the farm and the rest is
sold to the public energy system.
As for the future plans and investments, they would like to rent more land if it's possible,
but it is so expensive, that from their point of view it wouldnt be reasonable to engage in such a
venture ( 1 ha = ca. 40 000 ). In the other hand, they are planning to improve many of their
systems as compost- they can get compost from a colleague, because he produces it in a big scale
so what would help to their fields to become more productive and to have richer yields. They are
not planning anything big because in Germany they say that it is better to go by small but safe
steps and think about what we can do without investing big amount of money (Hans Holland).

HUMAN RESOURCES ( Itvan Hudak)

The farm is managed by Hans Holland who represents the third generation of Holland
farm owners. The farm has three permanent employees; the farm owner (Hans Holland) on fulltime, one full-time worker whose task is to ensure the distribution of the products and the
acquisition of new piglets; one apprentice and one part-time worker (coming on friday and
saturday, depends on the need for work to be done). As for the seasonal labour, there are
contractors with adequate machines.

FINANCES
They built the biogas plant with bank loan and had the opportunity to buy a field two
years ago also with a loan (they paid 3,30 / m ). From 180 ha of land they cultivate, about 50
ha is rented and the rest is owned. Renting is very expensive and nowadays 1 ha can be rented for
600 / month. There used to be a problem with biogas plant in long term contracts while the
prices are growing and the owners tend to give it to someone else. The economic situation for
biogas plants is not good anymore so they are not able to pay high rents for the next few years.