Milestones of organic and sustainable agriculture E-Book

Rainer Friedel

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 400

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

What can you expect to find in this book? The author describes his personal memories of organic and sustainable agriculture in Germany and many other countries on all continents. In doing so, he reports in narrative style on a large number of his own projects from the long period from the 1970s to the present day and derives considerations from them as to which of these experiences could be incorporated into future farm practice, but also into political decisions. Readers dealing with similar issues will receive a wealth of ideas for their own projects. These impulses initially arose from his own practical experience with successful large-scale farming in bird and water protection areas. Significant areas of the farm could later be transferred to a national park; not for rehabilitation, but because of the existing rich biodiversity and the good quality of soil, water and landscape. The author's agroecological consultancy successfully carried out several hundred consultancy projects for companies, authorities and governments. He has also been active in many countries on all continents as head of an internationally active certification body. All of this makes the book exciting, instructive and easy to read.

Leseprobe

About the past writes the, to whom the present and the future are important. after Johann-Wolfgang von Goethe (German poet (1749 – 1832)

Table of contents

Foreword

I

. My way to the first mile stone

II.

Organic Farming

The pioneers

Agroecology from the 1920s

Organic Agriculture in the recent present

My start in Organic Agriculture

EU Organic Regulation of 1992 creates secure organic law

From the everyday life of the Organic inspection body

The first organic customer

Organic consultancy in transition countries

What could be done now for Organic Agriculture

III.

Expansion of my organic inspection body through cooperation with Control Union Certifications

IV.

The Sustainable Agriculture

The emergence of Sustainable Agriculture

My own sustainability projects

Certification of Sustainable Agriculture

What could be done for Sustainable Agriculture in Germany

Our willingness to adapt is part of the underlying problem.

Create a sustainable agricultural structure

V.

Dealing with the theory of certification and sustainability of rural areas

VI.

Sustainable world peace to ensure performance of Organic and Sustainable Agriculture

VII

. My new professional start in midlife

About the book and the author

Complete table of contents

Foreword

More and more people are becoming aware of the climate change that has already begun. Researchers collect environmental data and evaluate them. The conclusions are becoming more and more serious.

In recent years, the "Fridays for Future" have been the most effective in developing a counter-open sive for the public. Young people in Germany and around the world are concerned about their future and about the fact that too little is being done in the present to secure their future. Politicians have been asleep until now. In Germany, the government even had to be woken up by the Federal Constitutional Court in 2021 to take action.

Meanwhile, in Germany, millions of trees are drying up. Instead of green forests, large parts of the landscape present themselves as brown landscapes full of dead trees.

Summers are getting hotter. The number of storms is increasing. Their effects lead to disasters (most recently in July 2021 in southern Germany and Saxony and in many places around the globe).

People suffer and die. Habitats for animals and plants are also destroyed. Huge costs are incurred to help those affected. Responsible people see that money can only be spent once and that the costs for the coming generations to cope with the climate crisis must not be allowed to worsen their quality of life. Action must be taken today.

Agriculture as an industry is under scrutiny by critics. Keywords: poison in the fields, insect mortality, decline in the number of birds and small game, cruelty to livestock. The list of damages caused by unsustainable agriculture is long and justified.

Fortunately, this justified criticism is also countered by good things. The food supply of the German population with food from domestic production is assured. More and more people not only want to visit distant countries on holiday, but also to relax in the local countryside, whose image is shaped everywhere in Germany by the agricultural sector.

The most frequent voices evaluating the situation of German agriculture come from ordinary citizens and consuments. They are highly committed and motivated. They have the advantage that they see everything through the magnifying glass of their already firmly established view. Both the good and the bad wanted.

Farmers who carry out agricultural work processes and live from the results of their work usually have a very different image in their minds than holidaymakers from the city. They are bound to the existing equipment of their farms and to their experience, which they have often inherited from their ancestors. In this environment, changes are not only dependent on the will, but also on the existing framework conditions, over which those criticised often have no influence at all.

In most cases, changes require considerable investments . The transition from familiar work processes also costs mental win ding and requires the acquisition and acceptance of new knowledge.

Around the farmers are many who "know better", e.g. consumers, parents with their children, conservationists. Other groups, e.g. politics and research, pick up the idyllic image of agriculture from the consumers. Too few of these two groups derive the image of future German agriculture from how the real damage done by agriculture to the climate and ecosystems can be rapidly reduced and eliminated, and what the agriculture of our grandchildren should look like. Some divide all agriculture into conventional, organic and sustainable. The number of conventionally farmed farmers and the area they farm in Germany and around the world is much larger than for the other two forms.

In this book I would like to report on the milestones of organic and sustainable agriculture that I have been able to observe and in part help to shape during my long professional career. In doing so, I would like to present arguments that are necessary for a proper evaluation of the real situation in the agricultural economy. In addition, I will present my ideas for a future capable image of sustainable land economy that takes into account the natural conditions as well as the demands of the German residential population.

One book is not enough to present and evaluate all these facts and opinions. I would therefore like to focus on a few milestones . By this I mean very special events or findings that raised further development to a higher level. When did it become clear that agrochemicals were not only helpful? When did the pioneers begin to find age natives? How did the change in husbandry methods in stables from "torture husbandry" to species-appropriate stables take place? When did the words sustainability and ecology arrive in practical agriculture? How were they put into practice?

Since the mid-1970s, I myself have participated in this change at various locations and in various positions. From this perspective, I will report here on the development of the ecological and sustainable land economy in Germany and the world.

These are my personal memories and views. It is not a subject book.

I My way to the first mile stone

Childhood and study

My father was a farmer and we lived in the village. So I learned a lot about farming as a child and growing up up in everyday life.

After eight years of school, I began four years of further education in 1962 at the "Extended secondary school", today in Germany called Gymnasium. At that time, this 4-year education took place in such a way that I, like all the other pupils, received two valid qualifications at the end of this school period. One was the Abitur certificate. This confirmed that I had the university entrance qualification to study at university.

The second qualification was a certificate of proficiency in cattle breeding. For this, there was a change every 3 weeks to the training company and to the vocational school. At the vocational school we learned about feeding, milking, reproduction, etc. In the training company we did the usual work in a team with the permanently employed adults. I had to write a paper to graduate as a specialist worker. Topic: Between and fruit cultivation in my training company. In addition, in 1966, after 4 years of training, I had to take a practical examination. I had to "demonstrate" certain work in the barn in front of a small com mis mission of vocational school teachers. I did not get to know the words sustainability and ecology during this time.

In 1968 I began my 4-year university studies at the University of Leipzig. I had applied for a degree in agriculture . But I ended up studying animal pro duction. The farms had been oriented towards industry and had become specialised and quite large in comparison to other regions in Germany. There were now specialised farms for animal production and specialised farms for plant production. So I had to choose one of the divisions.

The process of specialising the studies was called "Hoch schul reform". I was elected as the Studien jahressprecher for our academic year. Just a few months after the start of the study dium, I had to give a speech on the Studi en reform in this function in front of 700 people in the large hall of the Leipzig Zoo. I still have the manuscript today. Like all the rebellious students in the world, I gave a very critical speech. But the speech did not have any consequences. Neither for the reform programme nor for me. That is probably how it is for many student speakers in the world today.

I don't remember learning about ecology and sustainability at university when I was a student (1968-1972). When I think back to that time, resource economics probably played a more important role. That is, how to harvest as much as possible from one hectare and how to get a cow to give more milk.

Zingst - Agriculture in protected areas

In 1978 I successfully completed my doctorate at the Research Centre for Animal Pro duction in Dum merstorf. After that I went to Zingst in the same year. There, in addition to science, I also wanted to get to know practical agriculture.

What I neither suspected nor knew when I was preparing for the change: in Zingst, my concern with ecology and sustainability began to become a main topic of my professional life. Several peculiarities of the farm and its environment were the measure of this.

At first, the very large agricultural areas of VEG1 Zingst were affected by several large bird and water protection areas . The agricultural areas are bordered to the north and west by the Baltic Sea and to the south and east by the Bodden lakes. To the east of the village is one of the largest resting places for cranes in Europe. In addition, there are, of course, bird species whose habitat is on the water, e.g. the Pracht diver, Rohrdom mel, white-fronted goose, Eider duck and many others. But many songbird species are also hot mixed, e.g. marsh warbler, blackcap mosquito, skylark, goldfinch, etc. In addition, there are roe deer, wild pigs, hares etc. All in all, a very remarkable bio diversity.

Secondly, the arable land as well as the meadows and pastures were very close to groundwater. This is beneficial for the yield of the land in front of the groundwater. However, the proximity to groundwater requires very sensitive management with agricultural chemicals, especially fertilisers, because there is a risk that the chemicals could be used and cause a serious deterioration of the water quality.

Another special fact was that VEG Zingst was the initiator and member of the Young Cattle Rearing Production Association (Produktionsvereinigung Jungrinderaufzucht; PVJ). This new form of organisation was an agricultural experiment by the government. liti It was unique in the whole country. It was unique in the whole country. I had a chance to be there.

PVJ

5 member farms 15,450 ha 50,000 young cattle

The five farms belonging to the PVJ, with a total area of over 15,450 ha and 50,000 young cattle, together formed the production association. The westernmost farm was located close to Bad Doberan. The easternmost farm was on the island of Rügen. There are 150 kilometres of road between the two farms.

All member companies received certain, otherwise unusual rights and financial benefits. One of the advantages was, for example, that the PVJ maintained direct contacts with many industrial companies and scientific institutions at . This meant that we were very closely linked to current research and the latest machines. This kept us very closely in touch with the latest research and the latest machines. The new tractors from the Schönebeck tractor factory and the latest models of harvesting machinery from the Neustadt agricultural machinery factory were tested in productive use. The use of newly bred grasses (Paulinenaue Research Institute) and new animal medicines (Serum plant Jena) as well as many other cooperations were the basis for a high level of productivity of the agricultural enterprises involved in the PVJ.

With these experiences from the 1970s on the coopera tion of practical agriculture with the country's top research in mind, I am now reading the report "Precision Farming Ökolandbau 4.0: Wenn digi tal trifft auf Bio" (Precision Farming Organic Farming 4.0: When digital meets organic) by 20202 . There, a farmer interviewed as a pioneer (40 years after I worked in Zingst) says: "I can't say when this [the digitalisation of some of the first steps of his farming] will pay off . Whether I get into sub-area specific sowing depends on my colleagues. On my own, I will definitely not invest in new sowing technology inves ting with sowing cards in different seed strengths." There are 4 decades between my experience in Zingst and the words of this pioneer farmer who is interested in digi talisation today. Measured by technological level, it seems that today's pioneer faces greater technical innovation problems than I did in the 1970s.

The structure of VEG Zingst, its size and performance tungs capability as well as its many-sided cooperati on links had been built up by director Herbert Malzahn. As a young colleague, I always admired in him how individually he could deal with people. He spoke the "farmer's language" to tractor drivers and stable workers without conceit. But he also spoke the "language of the ministry" with the same confidence when he had a minister as a guest in the company. This enabled him to create something extraordinary. As a sign of reverence, he was also known outside the company as the "Green Baron" 3 .

Herbert Malzahn took the initiative for the PVJ from the successful VEG Zingst to the ministry in Berlin. There his idea became the government's agricultural policy experiment. Herbert Malzahn was "promoted" from director of the VEG to head of the PVJ.

I joined his leadership team about 1½ years after the PVJ was founded in Zingst. There, at the age of 31, I became Herbert Malzahn's deputy and then, after his departure, his successor as head of the PVJ.

Here I was able to study the technical basics in farm practice, how agriculture is run highly efficiently in an extremely sensitive ecological environment. I was able to fall back on this again and again in my later decades.

But the work in the production association also had many other memories. In building up VEG Zingst, which was the cornerstone of the PVJ, the then director Herbert Malzahn succeeded in creating an atmosphere in the large company that was full of enthusiasm for building up the company. This enthusiasm was not limited to the employees of the VEG. The author Meyer-Scharfenberg was so taken with it that he wrote a novel about the company in the middle of the bird protection areas4 . He describes the conflicts between bird protection and agriculture in an exciting and true-to-life way. The conflicts and the efforts to reconcile the conflicting demands of bird conservation and agriculture are the central focus of the novel. Many members of the association appear in the novel with slightly different names. This makes them easily recognisable for the initiated reader, and the author includes so many quirks and episodes in his book that it is a special pleasure for the initiated reader to read about them. Later, GDR television filmed the novel under the name "Inselsommer"5 and broadcast it nationwide. When such an atmosphere is present, it is a great experience to have been there.

In addition to the director, there was also an intellectual ellen Gegen spieler. It was the veterinarian Dr. Roland Slucka. He was not only a gifted deter veterinarian, but also a very knowledgeable eco loge. This was one of the reasons why he was a candidate for the Academy of Land Economics in Berlin. He was an expert admonisher at the highest level. His suggestions were always important to the director, who was more geared towards the economy and the economy. The functioning of intensive agriculture in a sensitive environment is largely thanks to his observations and suggestions.

I would also like to tell you briefly about another person who influenced my life in Zingst. It is Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Hans Stubbe (1902-1989). For younger generations, the name is not very well known. The following two points of his long life as a researcher seem to me to particularly characterise his personality for the people who live after him.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the Soviet researcher Trofim Denisovich Lyssenko developed his own theory of genetics, which became a binding basis for agriculture in the Soviet Union. Prof. Stubbe lived as a genetics researcher in the GDR, which at the time was politically closely tied to the Soviet Union. He recognised the fundamental errors of Lyssenko's theories and publicly opposed them. This required quite extraordinary courage at the time. Anyone who doubted the Soviet Union at that time was very close to being imprisoned and banned from working. Through Stubbe's sensitive but stringent engagement, the small GDR avoided major damage to the country's economy. Such damage hit the Soviet Union's agriculture hard at the time. Allied China also suffered from Lyssenko's heresy, as did most other allied countries. Prof. Stubbe saved his country from damage at a very high personal risk.

His second achievement with a long-term effect was the founding of the GDR's Academy of Agricultural Sciences. It was by far the country's largest research organisation for agriculture. In 1990 it had about 35 institutes with about 3,500 scientists and over 30,000 employees. These research institi tutes created the scientific basis for the GDR's agricultural economy to have a very high innovation potential. This gives the country's businesses a secure competitive position even long after reunification.

Prof. Stubbe often invited me to his home. He lived in a very beautiful, cane-roofed house just behind the dyke. He had long since retired, but he wanted to learn a lot about the current situation in agriculture from me, who had just passed the age of 30 and already had a position worth noting. The conversations are unforgettable to me. His professionally upright attitude became a lifelong role model for me, although fortunately I was never faced with exis tential decisions in this matter.

I also once sold him a lamb from my small sheep group, which then kept the lawn short on his land . This tiny episode is also unforgettable to me.

Many years later, when I no longer lived in Zingst and had founded my own consulting company Agro-Öko-Consult in Berlin after reunification, a non-agricultural aspect of sustainability approached me. I met up again with a good friend from Zingst to chat about old and new times. He told me how, in just a few years after reunification, the idyllic fishing village, which was dominated by the traditional cane-roofed houses (today they call them "reeds"), had been transformed into an "upturned old matron" (his words). Anyone who managed to do so took out large loans to push his house up quickly so that he could live well off the expected stream of tourists. Due to the lack of building regulations, the place soon lost its natural charm and became an exhibition ground for all the knick-knacks you can buy in the building market.

Holidaymakers still came in droves and the rental yields a good return. "However," my friend told me, "we can't have any water plague coming through agriculture. Then we'll all be broke. We can't live without tourists." To this day, I have not heard of tourism in the village and the surrounding area ever being harmed by agriculture . Obviously, the technical foundations laid years ago, together with the new knowledge of the experts who have come along, are still working well today to reconcile agriculture, ecology and tourism.

Review of the Zingst agricultural experience

Today (2021), as I write these lines, I cannot recall that there was any accompanying ecological research in Zingst or in the other member operations of the Producers' Association when the PVJ existed (1970s and 1980s). I suspect that there actually was none. This issue was not a priority at that time. As I reported in connection with my studies in Leipzig, the focus at that time was on resources economy. Ecological damage caused by agriculture was not an issue at the time. They were probably minor or not even observable, because the use of chemicals was still low compared to today.

Many years later, in retrospect, a project currently being conducted by made me rethink the situation regarding ecology and sustainability in the mid and late 1970s with new knowledge. This is how it came about:

My company Agro-Öko-Consult GmbH, which was founded in 1990, was awarded a prestigious contract by a notable industrial con sortium (Gaze de France-SUES, GASAG Berlin and STRABAG) in 2014. Since the end of the 1960s, natural gas had been produced on an industrial scale in the western Altmark region. Over the decades, an extensive network of various underground pipelines was built for this purpose. The total length of all pipelines in the relatively small production area with a diameter of about 30 km was said to be 3,000 km. When, after the year 2000, the production volumes continued to decline rapidly, the question was raised whether it would be possible to use this pipe network for new purposes. The chain of thought was to produce biogas from agricultural raw materials and then use wind energy to produce town gas and/or water from the biogas. The dense pipeline network from the natural gas production that is coming to an end would almost completely avoid aboveground biomass transports because it would be possible to connect a biogas plant directly to the pipeline network almost everywhere with extremely short distances.

Our task was to prepare a feasibility study for the production of agricultural raw materials and to win over as many farmers as possible for this concept. The study was a complete success.

During a discussion in the small circle of experts of the consortium ti ums, a discussion once developed whose opening sentences I can still remember exactly.

The consortium asks me: "What can be done so that the biomass can be produced particularly cost-effectively by the farmers?"

I replied as if shot out of a pistol: "Yields stei gladly, harvest more from each hectare."

Consortium: "Is it possible?"

My mouth answered quickly, without me thinking in detail: "Of course, I used to run a farm that had much higher yields than our neighbours and was therefore very profitable.

Consortium: "You've got a lot of chemistry there ge schmis sen." This sentence was accompanied by an expression that signalled both a genuine need for knowledge and a nasty reproach.

Me: "Yes, of course, but due to the applied agriculture cul ture, there was never any impaired groundwater. Apart from this, large areas of land were allocated to the later founded national park. Not for rehabilitation, but because of the existing rich biodiversity and other very suitable ecological parameters ter."

This last sentence had never been in my mind again for about 30 years since I left Zingst until I talked to the industry partners. Now it was born for me. Since that time, I have not let go of the thought of evaluating all this more precisely with today's knowledge. Only now, when I can pursue my former profession as a hobby, do I have the time to better organise my experiences on the subject of ecolo gical and sustainable agriculture. It is only now that I can underpin this reflection with research. Now seems the right time to write down my memories of organic and sustainable agriculture and to derive ideas about the future of "my" sector from the memories of 4 decades.

1 VEG - Volkseigenes Gut. Legal form for agricultural enterprises in the GDR.

2https://www.agrarheute.com/technik/ackerbautechnik/digitalisierung-Landwirtschaft-bio-563417

3 In appreciation of my "apprenticeship" with Herbert Malzan, I gave my company, founded in 1990, the company colour green, which was also his favourite colour.

4 Fritz Meyer Scharfenberg: "Der Mann auf dem Kirr", book publisher Der Morgen. You can also get to know Meyer-Scharfenberg as an intimate portrayer of the coastal inhabitants and their mentality in the book "Boddengeflunker", Hirnstorff Verlag, Rostock, 1978.

5https://www.fernsehenderddr.de/index.php?script=dokumentationsblatt-detail&id1=14796

II Organic farming

The pioneers

Since time immemorial, farmers have been interested in harvesting more from their fields and shearing more wool from their sheep. For the longest period of agriculture, however, there was almost no knowledge of biology and genetics and the many animate and inanimate factors that determine the yield capacity of soils. Three-field farming and the simple plough pulled by animals were the "technology" of the time. The son took over his father's experience in many ways. Progress was probably as foreign a thought then as it is unimaginable for us today not to know about progress and not to strive for it. Idea lists glorify this as being close to nature, but ignore what this meant for people's living conditions.

Albrecht Daniel Thaer

It was not until the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries that Albrecht Daniel Thear and his book "Grundsätze der rationellen Landwirt hschaft" (Principles of Rational Agriculture), which is still modern today, came up with the first ideas that can rightly be described as the foundation of agricultural science. In line with the situation at the time, his proposals were primarily aimed at improving economic efficiency and making work easier. There was no need yet for ecology and sustainability.

Johann Heinrich von Thuenen

In the Thaer direction, the work of Johann Hein rich von Thünen followed. These founded agricultural economics with elements that were new at the time, such as agricultural credit, land value and Thünen's rings. Not yet a word about ecology and sustainability.

Justus von Liebig

Another German innovator in agriculture was Justus von Liebig, a chemist. He recognised that plants take nutrients from the soil to grow and that adding nutrients to the soil can increase yields.

This realisation led to the mining of materials suitable for use as plant nutrients. Their use, together with the parallel, simple mechanisation of agricultural work, led to an almost doubling of agricultural yields in Germany within a few decades. This made it possible to feed the rapidly growing population, especially in the cities.

His new developments, which later positively influenced the whole world, cannot yet be described with today's understanding of the terms ecology and sustainability. On the contrary. Misguided people see him as the one who, with the introduction of chemistry into agriculture, is also the actual originator of over-fertilisation, insect mortality, etc. But these are the consequences of the misapplication of the innovations of that time. But these are the consequences of the misapplication of the innovations of that time. I will come back to this later.

Agroecology from the 1920s

The most notable milestone between the 1920s and 1970s (these dates are of course fuzzy), is the emergence of the idea of organic farming. This began in Germany and Switzerland in the early 1920s. Today, this form of farming is spread all over the world and is doing its good work there.

I would like to mention this briefly here in order to place it on the time scale. For a detailed discussion of the development and current position of organic agriculture and its immense role in other aspects of nutrition, environmental protection, etc., please see the separate chapter beginning at the bottom of this page.

The 1930s were years of considerable economic growth in Germany, but also in the USA. This was also driven by the rapid development of the chemical industry, which was a young industry at the time. Agricultural chemistry developed rapidly because there were two drivers that reinforced each other. Farmers learned about the use of fertilisers (especially N, P, K) and other chemicals, and demand increased. The chemical industry developed more and more new products and the range of products became larger. With the start of the war, production capacities were converted to meet wartime needs.

Agroecology from the 1950s onwards

The end of the war was quickly followed by a significant new surge in agricultural chemistry. The first serious damage caused by too many chemicals was discovered as early as the beginning of the 1950s with the plant protection agent DDT. However, knowledge was limited to experts and it was not until 1970 that production and use were banned. This was also the time of the Conter gan scandal and forest dieback in the Federal Republic. These events contributed significantly to raising public awareness of the harmful effects of chemistry. However, decades passed before the first warning voices reached the ears of the masses.

Timetable as a summary

1920s

Start of organic farming. Citizens in Germany and Switzerland reject the basics of the emerging in dustrial way of life. They are looking for a new lifestyle in various areas: family structure, pedagogy, medicine, nutrition, architecture, etc. No written criteria. No certification. Purchase and prices on a basis of trust.

1970s

Private organic farming associations with their own organic criteria are formed.

1980s

The organic trend has become established in society and organic farming is growing. Fraudulent parasites are introducing insecurity into the organic system.

1992 First EU Organic Regulation

The EU presents the Organic Farming Regulation as consumer protection legislation: • Detailed description of the production methods to be used and those not to be used. The philosophy and many technical details were adopted from the pioneers of the 1920s. In addition, the experience gained thereafter, up to the drafting of the EU Regulation, was integrated into the text of the Regulation. • Control and certification • Fines for "eco-fraud • Participation in the organic-system is voluntary. • The wishes of organic consumers are defined in detail by law (EU Organic Regulation).

1992 First EU Organic Regulation)

• Farmers who voluntarily participate in the organic system must strictly adhere to these rules, even if some of them do not correspond to their professional experience from traditional farming.

• Organic products from countries outside the EU may be exported to the EU according to certain rules and receive the organic surcharge here. • Consumers pay higher prices for these "desired products". • Deviations are violations of the law and will be pursued through sanctions and penalties.

2018: New EU organic regulation; valid as of January 2022

• Fundamental philosophy from 1992 is continued • The new regulation is intended to ensure even better competitive conditions for organic land producers, prevent fraud and further strengthen consumer confidence.

Organic Agriculture in the recent present

The agro-ecological situation in Germany has reached a low point. The causes of species extinction in flora and fauna are fairly well known. The most important ones are:

Habitat loss,

intensive, unsustainable use of ecosystems ,

Input of pollutants and nutrients into soil, water and air,

Climate change.

In the mid-2010s, it became known that the number of insects in Germany had fallen by 70-80% in recent years. A few years later, the rapid decline of insects fres sending songbirds was reported. There are now entire landscapes without deer and hares.

We know who is responsible for the individual types of damage. dens species. But the impression is created that only nature conservation associations, bright schoolchildren and some media are concerned with the problem. The polluters themselves, their associations and the agricultural researchers relevant to the issue, as well as the industry that produces and sells the products causing the damage, are unable to come up with any proposals for measures that can be implemented. German agroecologists prefer to conduct research in Africa and Asia and use the results to fill their publication lists and archives.

Politicians only comment. The authorities write or have future concepts written, but these are not followed by any implementation cation measures . There are no really effective, region-wide actions that could at least be expected to stop the frightening trend in the medium term.

However, the reticence of those responsible for the extinction of species in flora and fauna, which is currently largely tolerated by society and politics, is the main reason why the ecological situation in Germany is in a serious crisis.

Admirable actions by schoolchildren and concerned citizens are proclaimed in the media. However, what is done wrong by politics, industry and agriculture, and what is not communicated to the public in a recognisable way by experts, cannot be compensated for by student posters.

For me, the not looking and the waiting around me is hard to bear, since I myself have experienced low-pollution agriculture in practice6 and experience today that these good practical experiences are completely ignored, probably solely because the ses knowledge was created east of the Elbe.

The early practice of organic farming in Germany

The pioneers

The foundations of organic agriculture, as it is realised worldwide today, emerged in the 1920s in Germany and Switzerland as a private initiative of people who rejected the industrial way of life that was emerging at the time. They built on ideas of precursors at the end of the 19th century, e.g. the Eden-Genossen schaft in Oranienburg (founded in 1893 under the name "Vegetarische Obstbau-Kolonie Eden e.G.m.b.H.").

Various structures developed side by side, e.g. the "Lebensreform" movement and Demeter, as well as a whole number of associations whose names are only known today by researchers. There were also various authors (e.g. Bilz, Steiner, Tessenow, Damaschke, etc.) and journals that published their ideas for "natural" agriculture and a "healthy" diet and lifestyle based on it. A common description of what we understand today by the term "organic farming" did not yet exist at that time.

The initiators and active supporters of this new way of life and nutrition joined forces with like-minded farmers who were prepared to change their production processes in order to fulfil the ethically justified wishes of the life reformers. These farmers devised production methods in which they could do without industrially produced fertilisers, pesticides and weed control.

They found out (again7 ) that it can be done without chemicals. Soil fertility can be promoted by a diverse crop rotation and nitrogen supply to the plants is possible by cultivating legumes. Green fertilisation is useful for the targeted formation of humus, etc.

In the following decades, more and more people became interested in this nature-friendly way of eating and living. More and more farmers, too, switched to using the support available in nature to produce healthy food. The number of consumers and farmers with these new ideas remained very small in relation to the total population for more than ten years.

With these pioneers, the roles of land manager and consumer have gradually reversed. Farmers had always used the methods they had learned from their fathers to produce food. Now, in this scene, consumers determined which production methods farmers should and should not apply. Consumers were guided by ethical motives, not by agricultural expertise. However, the farmers involved were happy to adopt the ethical drive and converted their farms to the then new producti on process (see figure below).

There were no firmly binding production rules. Marketing was done on an individual level and on the basis of trust. The number of consumers who wanted to eat naturally produced food continued to grow, and more and more farmers produced exactly what consumers wanted at the time. Control and certification only developed decades later.

Consumers and farmers intended that the soil and plants in the production process should not be contaminated with (possibly ) toxic production aids. Their grandchildren should also have clean, healthy soils for the production of healthy food. The groundwater ser that flushes fertiliser and pesticide residues from the fields should not bring poison into the rivers that flow into the seas with this load. Wild herbs, to which many functions are attributed, including for the health of crops and the soil (biodiversity), should t not be completely destroyed by chemical control. These plants should remain in the fields as components of an intact nature in a certain stock. Only a reduction in the density of wild herbs should provide the crops with conditions for sufficient economic yields. Wild herbs were reduced by weeding, hoeing and brushing only to such an extent that the crops receive sufficient nutrients, but the ecological diversity is not killed off.

Associations for organic agriculture structure their rules

Decades later, in the 1970s, several private associations for organic agriculture were founded that are still active today: Biokreis (1979, regional focus), Naturland (1982, initiative of scientifically oriented farmers and consumers) and Ecovin (1985, viticulture). These wrote down their respective production rules and made them binding for their members.

Farmers could become members of these associations. They had to undertake to comply with the production rules of the association. In return, they received marketing support, advice and better opportunities to exchange ideas with other farmers from the associations. This is still the case today.

In 2021, 35,716 farms throughout Germany operated according to the principles of the EU organic regulations. Of these, 16,744 farms (approx. 47% of all organic farms) were members of the 8 German organic farming associations. The sometimes significantly different average farm sizes indicate different structural conditions in the sphere of influence of the associations.

Association

No. of members of the

Total area (ha)

Area per member (ha)

Bioland

7.744

488.912

63,13

Naturland

3.721

286.405

76,97

Demeter

1.599

106.486

66,59

Organic Circle

1.285

82.236

63,99

Biopark

509

111.416

218,89

Gäa

385

43.796

113,76

Ecovin

241

2.722

11,29

Organic Farm Network

134

16.164

120,63

Ecoland

51

3.885

76,18

In their marketing, the associations for organic agriculture claim that they oblige their members to work according to "stricter criteria" than the EU Regulation. This is a significant advantage, especially for animal welfare.

What the associations for organic farming do not communicate is that permission to market farmers' organic products is possible solely through a certificate based on the EU Organic Regulation. This seems to me to be very justified. On several occasions I have encountered that associations for organic agriculture, in order to protect their brand, conceal from the public the fact that individual members of the association do not behave according to the given rules and thus commit organic fraud. In practice, the exclusion of organic fraudsters from the market is only guaranteed by the legally effective rules of the EU organic regulations, in that fraudsters are held accountable on this basis. Consumer protection is thus the key component of the EU organic regulation.

In 1988, the then existing associations for organic agriculture joined forces to form the Working Group on Organic Agriculture (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Ökologischer Landbau; AGÖL). Now common basic standards were defined, which described the minimum standards of organic agriculture. The AGÖL represented the political interests of the farmers. The AGÖL was dissolved in 2002. In 2002, the AGÖL dissolved. As the new cross-sectoral umbrella organisation of all farming, processing and trade associations, the organic stakeholders founded the Association of the Organic Food Sector (Bund Ökologische Lebensmittelwirtschaft; BÖLW) in the same year, which has been the political representative of the sector as the German umbrella organisation since 2003.

Today, the organic growers' associations and the BÖLW continue to play a significant role in the German "organic system" lands. Firstly, they support their members in selling their products. In addition, the growers' associations and BÖLW contribute their com petence to the public debate on organic agriculture.

In 1992, organic farming throughout the EU first received government support with the issuance of the EU regulation on eco logi farming.

An EU regulation is directly applicable in the member states of the law. This has significantly strengthened organic farming, which has led to a rapid and significant wave of conversion. The large scale farms in eastern Germany have made a significant contribution to this . Initially, they organised themselves primarily in the organic association Gäa, founded in 1989 in the GDR, and in Biopark, which was founded in 1991 after German reunification.

In parallel to the associations for organic agricultur, other associations and organisations were founded: Association of Health Food Stores(Verband der Reformhäuser; 1927), Association of Organic Food Manufacturers (Assoziation Ökologischer Lebensmittelhersteller; 2001), Association of Organic Supermarkets (Verband der Bio-Supermärkte, 2005), merger into Federal Association Natural Food/Natural Goods (Bundesverband Naturkost/Naturwaren, (2013), as well as the Working Group of Ecoogically Committed Food Retailers and Druggists (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Ökoogisch engagierter Lebensmittelhändler und Drogisten, 2017).

The EU organic regulation stood ready as a binding legal basis for the protection of consumers and bona fide market participants for all actors active in the organic system.

For marketing purposes, it is obligatory for all marketers to have a successful organic inspection of the enterprise, as evidenced by the certificate and indicated by the EU organic label. Members of organic associations may, in addition to the legally required labelling, also indicate their association membership on labels .

My start in Organic Agriculture

I first heard the term "organic farming" in the early 1990s. A former working c ollege, who did his doctorate at the same research institute as I did, was (around 1991) in Brussels for another training course at the EU in the same year after a further training course at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture. He told me about his experiences in Brussels and mentioned that the EU was preparing a new regulation for "organic farming". Neither of us knew exactly what that meant. But I was electrified. I was still looking for new topics for my newly founded consulting company Agro-Öko-Consult GmbH.

My aim was to pass on the experiences from my time in Zingst . The colleague then sent me information ons material. I was able to use this to prepare the foundation of the organic control agency for Agro-Öko-Consult GmbH. Compared to today, the requirements at that time were very terse. I had to submit a form free application to the Berlin Senate. Then two officials came to our office. They asked a series of questions that were easy to answer. The most important criteria to be fulfilled were that at least 2 persons are employed (representatives are required) and that the control centre has a telephone to receive calls from customers. For readers who are not aware of this: today, authorisation consists of extensive application documents as well as checks on professional and technical performance capability.

After completing his EU course, my colleague did not find a job in an authority and joined me at Agro-Öko-Consult as managing director with equal rights. We worked very successfully together to set up this agricultural consultancy. 15 years later, almost to the day after we started working together, he took the opportunity to work for a ministry.

The organic inspection body developed rapidly. I was now managing director of the advisory company and head of the independent unit "organic inspection body". Both fields of work had no overlap with topics and clients.

Again, my previous experience of farming in protected areas was very useful. I understood very quickly what it means to fulfil the regulations of the ordinance. In the very first years, many Brandenburg farmers applied to us to be inspected and certified. We had become a strong organic inspection body in Berlin/Brandenburg. Our colleagues from the south of Germany, who at that time were far superior to us in terms of theoretical knowledge, had not yet made their way to Berlin.

The first inspections were carried out by a young employee who had studied organic farming at the University of Bonn. He started his career with us. Later he worked at a high official level. We were good friends until his untimely death.

The fact that we did not yet know everything exactly put us on the same level as the other organic inspection bodies. Because they, like us, still had to practise applying the brand new EU organic regulation.

Over time, we could talk about being the market leader in organic certification in Brandenburg and Berlin . The majority of Brandenburg's farmers were inspected and certified by us. The rest were inspected by a larger number of inspection bodies, each of which had only a few customers at that time.

In Berlin, we mainly inspected organic food canteens, which also offered a certain percentage of completely organic food. A ministry employee once told me in response to my question about how many organic inspection bodies work in Berlin that this is not published. However, I could assume that around 90% of the organic kitchens in Berlin receive certificates from the Agro-Öko-Consult inspection body from . Our customers include all the refectories of all Berlin universities, the kitchens of the Federal Chancellor's Office and the Office of the Federal President, the canteens of major industrial companies and the large caterers Bärenmenue and Sodexho, as well as many, many others.

At that time, in 2000, 16 like-minded people, including myself, founded the För derge mein schaft Ökologischer Landbau Berlin-Brandenburg (FÖL) e.V. on the initiative of Michael Wimmer. This cooperation gave organic farming in Berlin and Brandenburg a powerful boost, which also benefited us. This was based on mutual cooperation. With our many customers, we were also able to give impetus to the association.

Years later, in 2014, my locally limited organic inspection agency of Agro-Öko-Consult became a globally active certification agency8 with about 30 certification areas, including of course organic certification. Due to the growing number of tasks, my cooperation with the FÖL decreased and then, unfortunately, fell asleep.

Looking back, I see that organic farming, as a specific form of agriculture, has been an integral part of my everyday working life for more than 30 years now. There have been many memorable events. Each one became another piece in the mosaic of how organic farming looks to me today and what I was able to share with partners and colleagues. I would like to report on some of these events, memories and related thoughts in the following.

EU Organic Regulation of 1992 creates secure organic law

Unfortunately, as the number of organic consumers continued to grow and a certain market size was reached in the 1980s, a growing number of fraudsters entered the market. They sold their conventionally produced food as "organic" or mixed both types of products. The fraud is quite easy to perpetrate, as the products are produced very differently and therefore have different prices, but usually look identical.

In this phase of increased fraud, the EU came to the side of the consumer. In 1992 it published a regulation9 for organic farming. This regulation created three new facts for farmers and consumers:

a) The content of the EU rules was very closely based on the production methods devised by the pioneers and on their further developments up to the adoption of the regulation in 1992. With the adoption of this legislation, a clear set of rules was created to which farmers could adhere, but also had to adhere if they wanted to sell their products as organic.

b) EU organic regulations make it illegal to advertise or sell products using the protected terms organic and eco, as well as other terms that may lead to confusion. Infringements can be sank tioned or punished.

c) In order to protect consumers of the elaborately produced food , which is better for nature and more valuable for humans, from fraudsters, an inspection of the producers (certification) was made mandatory . This is carried out by independent and state-supervised private inspection bodies. Organic farmers also welcome certification10 and tolerate it, despite the certification costs incurred. This is because the compulsory inspection protects honest farmers from fraudulent competitors.

Under the umbrella of the EU organic regulation, the "organic world" has developed into a rapidly growing community of like-minded people. Today, the main pillars of organic agriculture are:

The EU organic regulation prescribes production methods for farmers, gardeners, food traders, food processors and for similar or related industries.

Joining the eco-community is voluntary for companies ,