I am Johannes Grenzebach and founder of Mudda Natur. With the support of my family and my co-founder Simon Weiss, I have been growing quinoa in Germany for several years. As a small independent start-up, we don't have any employees yet and are implementing our vision of regionally grown quinoa in Germany on a part-time basis. In the next few years we hope to build up a small team to plant more agricultural products in Germany, which are nowadays mostly grown overseas. During my studies of agricultural sciences I got to know quinoa during an excursion. A friend of mine suffers from celiac disease (gluten intolerance). People with celiac disease have poor to no tolerance to our standard gluten-containing grains. However, as a pseudocereal from a different plant family, quinoa is gluten-free! My initial idea was to grow quinoa for a friend of mine to cover her year's supply. This has since become much larger and I have gradually developed new products. When I started growing quinoa a few years ago, I had no experience with this crop, but over the years I have developed a feel for the plant and the growing conditions here. The beauty of my quinoa is of course not only that it is gluten-free, vegan and free of bitter substances (saponins), but the regionality. Cultivated in the Wetterau region of Hessen in Germany, the short transport routes also help to protect the environment. Today, I have the cultivation of quinoa very well under control and am happy every year about the increasing support from CrowdFarmers like you. Thanks to CrowdFarming, I can continue my quinoa project and am already working on further field trials with crops from overseas to cultivate them in Germany as well.

Behind Mudda Natur stands a family farm in Wölfersheim in Germany that has been run for generations. Located in the beautiful Wetterau region of Hessen, agriculture has always been practiced. The quinoa comes directly from my fields in Germany and is processed in the region to our delicious fusilli pasta. We work together with one of the last family-run small mills for the production of the flour and subsequently with a nearby pasta manufacturer. The Wetterau offers the best agricultural conditions, so that today 950 farms in the region still take care of the arable and green areas. Incidentally, the name Wetterau is derived from a tributary of the river Nidda, the Wetter, and thus has nothing to do directly with the weather (in German: Wetter). The Wetterau extends north of Frankfurt am Main to the Vogelsberg near Giessen and offers special geological advantages with very fertile soils. In particular, basalt flows from the former volcanic activity of the nearby Vogelsberg have enriched the soils with minerals and created a rich soil in the course of the last ice age. It is therefore no wonder that the Wetterau is one of the oldest cultivated landscapes in Germany and was already densely populated in the Neolithic period around 5,000 years BC. With quinoa as an exotic and interesting and beautiful arable crop, this now contributes to the attractiveness of the Wetterau. For me, responsible and sustainable interaction with nature is part of my daily work. In order to operate as environmentally friendly as possible, I produce a large part of the required energy myself through photovoltaic installations on the roofs of the farm. Our water is also heated by solar panels in a climate-neutral way. I also live this sustainability on our fields: I cultivate the land in such a way that the fertility and biological activity of the soil is not only preserved, but increased. I achieve this by continuously building up humus in the soil, thus increasing the biodiversity on my land year after year. Quinoa is a very frugal and resistant plant, made to withstand the increasingly severe weather fluctuations and droughts: That is also the reason we do not need any artificial irrigation. Rainwater from the sky is the only source of water for this crop. Harvesting is done with a harvester, as with conventional grain, which of course has to be specifically adjusted. After harvest the quinoa is taken to a special grain cleaning plant and packed for shipment. The removed plant residues such as stems, seeds and leaves are mostly used for energy production in biogas plants. Thus nothing is lost. Weeds are allowed to grow - if they get out of hand, they are mechanically regulated. Our best employees are ladybugs, which use aphids and other insects as a food source and simply munch them away.