colourful Papenburg cheese Bioland
Engelnhof
Harvest available! order a box. You may also adopt once the season has ended.
The project
Adopt a cow of our flock "Engelnhof" in Papenburg (Germany) and receive your harvest in the form of a colourful Papenburg cheese Bioland at home. The Farmer Ludger will take care of your adoption and take its picture. Also, you will be able to download the adoption certificate and, if you wish, plan your visit to the farm. As the production coming from one cow is big, the adoption is shared among various people. If you wish to have a bigger share, you may adopt more than once. You do not enter into any long-term commitment: once you receive your harvest and you enjoyed the experience, you may decide to renew and extend the adoption.
What do you adopt?
Adopt a cow that we take care of following the Organic Farming regulations of the European Union since 2016.
The productive life of a cow is around 9-10 years. For as long as you want to keep it and we can continue taking care of it, you can renew your adoption year after year. If your cow dies, we will replace it with no additional cost and assuring the delivery of your production from other animals.
Each cow produces an average of 4000 liters of milk each season. With this amount we can produce around 400kg of colourful Papenburg cheese Bioland. Each cow is adopted by 200 CrowdFarmers who receive a box with 2 kg of colourful Papenburg cheese Bioland.
What will you receive?
Each season we will send you a box with:
__Colourful Papenburg cheese box__ (total 2kg)
1 x __organic wild garlic farm cheese__ (500g, vacuum packed)
a semi-hard to firm, smooth, soft raw milk cheese without rind, which is mild, slightly piquant and sour and tastes especially delicious after the added wild garlic. Gouda style.
1 x __organic farm cheese with Italian herbs__ (500g, vacuum packed)
a semi-hard to cuttable, smooth raw milk cheese without rind, mild to slightly piquant, pleasantly spicy with the taste of Italy: tomato, paprika, garlic, onion, basil, thyme and pepper. Gouda style.
1 x __organic heather cheese__ (500g, vacuum packed)
our heather cheese is very special: a semi-hard to firm, somewhat brittle raw milk cheese without rind, with a strong, even slightly acidic taste, which becomes more pronounced with age. Tilsit style.
1 x __organic pepper farm cheese__ (500g, vacuum-packed)
a semi-hard to firm, smooth, soft raw milk cheese with added grains of black pepper. Gouda style.
All our cheeses can be stored in vacuum packaging for approx. 60 days at 12 degrees and should, once opened, be stored in the refrigerator and used up quickly.
Heavenly enjoyment awaits you from the Engelnhof! All cheeses are handcrafted and freshly made for our CrowdFarmers from morning warm raw milk, with natural rennet. They are mild to slightly piquant cheeses, which become stronger in taste with age.
As mentioned above, our box contains only raw milk cheese. Raw morning milk from cows that have only given birth to one calf (first calves) is the most valuable milk in a herd of cows, and we use it to make our delicious Gouda and Tilsit-style cheeses for you. Since we cut our cheese to size, there may be slight variations from the 500g pieces. However, the total weight should always be correct!
When will you receive it?
Please, check the deadline for participating in this project (deadline for adoption) below. As of this date the Farmer will start preparing the orders that are to be shipped.
You may select the delivery date of your box as suggested by the Farmer at check-out.
Why should you adopt?
* Learn who produces your food, how and where. Receive your food in a conscious manner.
* Buy directly from the farmer. Help to generate wealth and better jobs in the rural areas.
* Plan ahead and enable the Farmer to produce on demand. This way we can avoid overproduction and fight food waste.
* Reward Farmers who make an effort to use environmentally-friendly packaging and cultivation techniques.
Organic
BPA-free
Handmade
How does it work?
Meet the Farmers
Adopt and plan your harvest
Let the Farmer and nature work
Receive your harvest at home
Environmentalist
Experienced Farmer
BPA-free
Farmer 360
Personalized harvest
Organic
Renewable energy
Family Farm
Visitors welcome
Additional analyses
Ludger Engeln
I, Ludger Engeln, leased my parents' business in 1989 when I was nineteen years old. After training as a master farmer in 1994, I took over the business. Since I was already of the opinion at that time that the milk I produce had a high value which the dairy did not pay me, I wrote my master thesis about the direct marketing of preferred milk (raw milk). In the same year we sold the first milk ourselves to private customers. In 2012 we gave up this type of sale with our own cars to private customers for cost reasons. We found that Papenburg and the surrounding villages are simply too sparsely populated. The demand for high-quality products from the region was too low at that time.
Since then we have been producing cheese that is easier to store, transport and sell. Through CrowdFarming we have found the possibility to delight cheese lovers with our high quality cheese even beyond the region.
My task in the company is the organisation of the whole business. For example, I am responsible for purchasing feed or spare parts. From spring to autumn I organise the work in the fields, so I always keep an eye on the weather forecast and the fodder stocks, and jump from one place to another, especially for repairs. But also developing ideas for the further development of the farm is my job, as well as our organic certification and the associated controls fall within my area.
Milking represents a large part of the overall work. We milk three times a day and have a permanent team for this. To ensure that all employees have regular free time, one of my employees draws up work plans.
The work in the fields is carried out by our neighbouring contract farm so that we can concentrate fully on the welfare of our cows.
Ludger Engeln
"Cows are our passion, cheese is our strength! In 2016 we have taken a huge step towards the future with our conversion to organic. We are happy if we can inspire many people with our project with CrowdFarming. This way we will be able to further expand this way of direct marketing."
Engelnhof
Engelnhof
Our farm, the Engelnhof in Papenburg (Lower Saxony), has been run by our family since 1904. At first as a typical mixed farm with pigs, cows, grain and potatoes. In 1962 we moved from the outskirts of Papenburg to the Aschendorfer Moor, about 3 km away, where I grew up. Here my parents expected a rather barren and rough moor landscape, which later gave one of my cheeses, the Papenburger Moorkäse, its name. My parents started there with about 26 hectares of land. Then as now, a large part of the land is high moorland: 600 m away from the farm we also have a moorland nature reserve as a neighbourhood.
Since 1977 we have specialized in dairy farming. A modern dairy cattle shed was built for the conditions of that time.
In 1994 I, Ludger Engeln, took over the farm after completing my master thesis. I am the third generation on the farm with my family. At that moment I also started to deal with the direct marketing of milk and artisanal dairy products and gave the farm the name "Engelnhof", after my surname.
In 2002 we built our cheese dairy. Since 2012 we have concentrated more on the artisanal production of cheese. In 2016 we built a new, very modern and animal-friendly cow barn. In the same year we started with the organic conversion. Since September 2017 the conversion has been completed and we have been a recognized organic farm since then.
Today our team consists of about twelve people. Seven of them are fully employed on our farm. Several of them have been working in the team for over ten years.
The liquid manure and dung produced on the farm, all feed residues and renewable raw materials are fermented in our own ecogas plant. The resulting ecogas is converted into electricity and heat in the company's own combined heat and power plants. The electricity is fed into the public grid. The heat is used in our own plant and in a neighbouring nursery. The resulting organic fermentation residue is spread on our fields as a readily usable organic fertiliser.
Through a varied crop rotation on our organically farmed, arable land (red clover grass, bush beans, maize, rye and chives) we promote biodiversity and sustainably enhance soil fertility. We do not use any synthetically produced pesticides. This allows us to offer our cows a balanced diet from our own and leased land. When we buy in feed, it comes only from recognized organic farms. A lactating cow eats about 45 kg of "cow muesli" daily and drinks 40-100 litres of water. In summer they go out to pasture. We live in a very humid moorland area and the water supply is therefore unproblematic.
Technical information
Address
Engelnhof, Papenburg, DE
Altitude
15m
Team
7 women and 5 men
Size
396 hectares
Cultivation technique
Organic farming
Flock size
385
Location