"Politicians and officials came to my farm in 1991 because organic production was considered impossible in those days. My colleagues thought I was crazy, and even my father was against it." That's how organic agriculture began in South Tyrol - to go by the current demand, it should really become an "industry". Farmer Josef Mair with his Larchhof near to Terlan (for fruit and wine) and the cattle breeding he carries out at the Burkharthof in Molten (Meltina) is convinced of the virtues of the organicgrowing method. For a lot of organic producers, he is virtually the "living rule" -just like the abbot or abbess of a monastery, who of course represents the monastic rule. As Josef Mair explains, "I took part in a conference held at Altbach in Austria in the late 1980s. There they were saying that things couldn't go on the way they were in agriculture and that something had to be done. That's all well and good. I had an advisor at the farm - he didn't know anything either, but he told me whatto do and I tried it out. We then founded Bioland Südtirol."
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