Skip to main content
About HiPP
A serene countryside scene with a house, green fields, and trees.

A HiPP model farm

In 2009, at the Ehrensberg Farm in Pfaffenhofen, HiPP began working in collaboration with scientists, Bioland and the Landesbund für Vogelschutz to research methods that have a positive impact on soil fertility and biodiversity in grassland farming.

The aim is to demonstrate how the protection and promotion of biodiversity can be integrated into day-to-day farming practices, thereby bringing about improvements. In the long term, we wish to provide our farmers with practical guidance on cost-effective measures to preserve biodiversity, and in doing so increase the number of farms that are particularly biodiversity-friendly.

This HiPP model farm is a grassland holding where the insect study initiated by HiPP in 2018 is also being carried out. HiPP staff are familiar with the farm, which remains family-owned to this day, as are school pupils, students and other interested groups, as HiPP regularly offers guided tours of the farm, thereby making the findings accessible to a wider public.

Together with the Association of Organic Food Producers (AöL), the Technical University of Munich, Leibniz University Hannover and partner companies, we are investigating the impact of agriculture on biodiversity within the organic food value chain. Practical steps are being developed to bring about improvements. These serve as a model for other farms to implement their own measures.

In order to increase species diversity, rare old breeds have found a home on the farm: original Braunvieh cattle, of which there are only 500 animals left in Bavaria, and the old chicken breed Appenzeller Spitzhauben.

A rooster with a white and black plumage stands on a bed of straw near a tree trunk.

According to the Red List of Threatened Farm Animal Species, the original Brown Swiss breed is ‘critically endangered’. At the Ehrensberg Farm, HiPP’s model farm for regenerative and biodiversity-friendly agriculture, this breed is reared in a manner appropriate to its species.

Three cows with distinct colors and features are walking through a forest with a carpet of fallen leaves.
Cows are actually forest animals. At the Ehrensberger Hof, the Original Braunvieh cattle have access to a woodland pasture: in summer, the trees provide shade, and in winter, shelter from ice and snow.
The Original Braunvieh cattle are descended from the so-called ‘Torfrind’, which grazed on the lakes at the edge of the Alps over 2,000 years ago.
A frog with a textured, mottled skin pattern of gray and yellow is perched on a rock, with a blurred green background suggesting a natural habitat.

In collaboration with the Bavarian Society for the Protection of Birds (LBV), various reintroduction projects have been carried out at the Ehrensberg Farm, for example to reintroduce the barn owl, the yellow-bellied toad, the Fischland toad and the tree frog. Species such as the yellow-bellied toad are being reintroduced at the Ehrensberg Farm.

A bird perches on a slender branch against a clear blue sky.
The rare red-backed shrike is an important hedge-dwelling bird for a healthy ecosystem.

The red-backed shrike is an important species for an intact ecosystem. Due to intensive farming, there are fewer hedges and bushes as a natural habitat for birds. It already belongs on the endangered species list. This rare bird is best known for spearing its victims on thorns. According to popular belief, it always collects nine insects before eating them. HiPP has created new habitats for the red-backed shrike on the Ehrensberg Farm, for example by setting up deadwood hedges (branches and twigs) at the edges of fields.

It is now rarely heard or seen: the eagle owl is one of Germany’s endangered species. Its greatest enemy is humankind. Monocultures such as maize and rapeseed fields, as well as intensive forestry, are depriving the eagle owl of its habitat. The loss of its territory is accompanied by a severe shortage of food. A pair of eagle owls now lives at the Ehrensberger Hof and is raising its young. Thanks to ecological and extensive farming practices, the plants on the farm are left to grow naturally and are free from pesticides. The farm thus provides an ideal habitat for these rare birds.

A hollowed-out tree trunk with a wooden platform and chains, surrounded by green leaves and branches.

These nesting boxes made out of natural logs should provide kestrels or tawny owls with a breeding place. These days, unfortunately, it is usual to clear deadwood (natural nesting spots for many birds) out of forests. This is why the nesting boxes are offered as an alternative.

Good to know

  • During the breeding season, barn owls eat up to 30 mice a day per pair.
  • A bat eats up to 4000 insects per night.
  • Why protect individual animal species? Quite simply, they fulfil functions that we only notice when they are absent. Without tree frogs, for example, there would be many more mosquitoes.
Three beehives are placed in a grassy area surrounded by green foliage.

Many people could live without honey, but not without bees. The insects not only deliver sweet spread for bread but above all pollinate flowers. In doing so, they secure the existence of plants and ensure good crops for the farmers. Without these animals, the fruit harvest would be in danger. When bees die or are ill, it affects us all. This is why HiPP is also involved in the preservation of natural habitats for bees with biodiversity projects. The Ehrensberg farm is now also home to six bee colonies, established as a reaction to the dramatic collapse of bee populations.

Good to know

  • 85% of the world's food production depends on honey bees. If the bees die out, humans cannot survive either, as the remaining wild insects would not be able to pollinate everything.
  • A bee colony has up to 60,000 bees.

To encourage the antlion and other insects to settle in the farmyard, a habitat has been created. Insects that live in the earth or sandy soil make a contribution to soil health and biodiversity that should not be underestimated. They aerate the soil and, through their excrement, also help to supply the soil with nutrients.

A pile of cut logs, a green plant, and a forested background.

Rows of trees, protective hedgerows (e.g. for the red-backed shrike), deadwood hedges, rootstocks and flowering strips at the edges of fields and in the meadows offer new habitats to reptiles, birds, small mammals and insects. The principle of deadwood hedges is not to create new hedges by planting them, but to let them be created by wind and seed flight. Branches, twigs and sticks are piled up as a loose wall, which also provides protection for growing plants. The advantages of such constructions are, one the one hand, the low construction costs and, on the other hand, the loosely piled deadwood offers a home to numerous rare species.

In conventional farming, the fields and meadows are planted right up to the edge of the forests, for more yield. To promote biodiversity, we plant, amongst other things, wildlife hedges containing deadwood and native wildflowers along the edges of our fields. These provide the animals with a place to live, offer the cattle protection from the wind and reduce soil erosion.

Three elements of regenerative agriculture:

A cow stands in a grassy field, separated by a wire fence from a cluster of vibrant pink flowers and a weathered log.

Planting along the edge of a field with deadwood and natural shelter for livestock in a European beech forest.

Wildlife hedges with deadwood

Native wildflowers

Good to know

  • Despite hedges, which reduce the area of the field, the farmer has the same yield. Although the yield area has been reduced somewhat, the yield is the same in the end because the conditions improve (e.g. a lot of evaporative cooling occurs on hot days) and the cultivated plants can grow with less stress.
  • Mowing at the wrong time of day (e.g. midday) kills up to 24,000 honey bees per hectare and an unknown number of wild insects.
  • In conventional meadows there are only 3-5 types of grass due to frequent mowing, whereas on a farm that maintains biodiversity there are up to 35 different types of grass.

Concerning the improvement of soil fertility, different methods have been tried out in the model project, for example using rock flour to bind ammonia, solid manure fertilization and other natural methods. Also, measures to support animal health, such as using effective micro-organisms or organic straw as litter, are used.

Many impacts affect the soil quality, especially in farming.

  1. Overdevelopment
  2. Chemical stress from industry and farming with long-term consequences on the health and performance capability of the soil.
  3. Physical stress from improper treatment (heavy machinery and tillage implements which destroy the sensitive soil complexes, leading to chemicals being needed to maintain yield).
  4. Working at wrong times.
  5. Loss of organic substance and thus of performance capability through the use of the wrong fertilisers, wrong crop rotation and wrong soil treatment.
  6. Impairment of groundwater through the wrong use of land.

The principle:

“Healthy soil – healthy plant – healthy person and healthy animal”

Good to know

  • Good organic soil can absorb and store 150l of water a day.
  • Every day in Germany, 77 hectares of land lose some or all of their function as a result of soil sealing, erosion and pollution.
  • Good organic soil can store 575-700 kg of CO2 per year and ha.
  • Earthworms are very important for the soil. They loosen it and fertilise it with organic substance (humus) which they excrete. In organic farmland, there are 200 – 500 earthworms per m².
  • In soil with 230 earthworms per m², that means 2.5t earthworms per ha.
  • Soil with 600 earthworms per m² can produce 80t of humus a year and ha (best case).
  • Earthworm tunnels go down 2m deep in the soil. A worm lives approx. 10 years in a tunnel, if it is left in peace, and the tunnels remain another 10 years and are used by other insects and roots.