Hello, I am Ann-Christin Heinrichs, I am running our family farm together with my father Hans-Peter already in the 8th resp. 9th generation. Where our apples and pears grow today, until the year 1940 only cows grazed and cereals were planted. After the first apple trees were planted, Josef Heinrichs, my grandfather, finally converted the farm completely to fruit growing. At the turn of the millennium, my father, Hans-Peter, took over the farm and switched to organic farming in the year 2015. Since then, you can find a colourful mix of apple and pear trees, wild herbs and flowers, many insects, bees and bumblebees. I grew up on our orchard and couldn't imagine doing anything else than helping out right after my apprenticeship. The idea of being able to continue working in and with nature when I grew up motivated me to start studying agricultural sciences in Bonn. During my studies I also had to deal with many downsides of the reality of being a young farmer. Nevertheless, I joined the farm afterwards and have not regretted it for a second since! We are a really good team, everyone in our family can contribute in different areas. This way, we are not only constantly developing our business, but we - ourselves - are also able to grow in new ways. You can imagine our daily life looking more or less like this: My dad, Hans-Peter Heinrichs, primarily takes care of the cultivation of our apples and pears. He is out in the fields a lot and takes care of instructing our staff. My mum Anita can often be found in the farm shop or in the office. She also takes care of our mason bees in the plantations. I work especially on our marketing and packaging as well as in cultivation. My sister Franziska is the creative head of our family and mainly takes care of the homepage and social media channels. Of course, our business always brings new challenges. Currently, the most present issues are of course climate change and the development of personnel structures. As an organic farm, we have always relied on new innovations and we are curious to see what possibilities will be offered in the next few years in order to operate even more sustainably. Of course, we also hope that more people will become enthusiastic about agriculture again. We want to make our contribution here and let as many people as possible share our passion for nature and agriculture. We also rely on good partnerships with Frutania, who support us in our new CrowdFarming project, for example. I think it's great to have the opportunity to teach you all directly about our delicious apples. Thanks to our farm shop, we already know about direct marketing, of course. But to be able to send apples directly to consumers beyond our regional borders is something really special!

Welcome to the Biohof Voreifel! The term 'family farm' is highlighted everywhere within our farm: each member of the family has his or her own specific tasks! On board are my father and my mother, who each take care of the cultivation and the farm shop, my sister Franziska, and me. Our family farm is located in the southern Rhineland. Here, just before the heights of the Eifel mountains, there are ideal conditions for fruit growing. We take great care of our apple and pear trees. It is important to us to work in harmony with nature and not against it. Organic farming is the best possible way to manage our farm in a way that save resources as much as possible. You notice a lot of buzzing around every corner in our facilities! We owe this to our flowering strips, which we have sown in the tramline between the trees. Insects play an important role for us: they are the natural antagonists of many pests such as the aphid. So we are happy every year when the first ladybirds or earwigs appear in the plant, which eat the aphids, for example, and keep our trees and thus also the apples and pears healthy. We always strive to try out a lot of new things and to stand out from other farms. This is also reflected in our diversity of varieties. In addition to the classic varieties such as Elstar, Braeburn and Gala, we also have rather unknown varieties. An example of this are the two varieties Elise and Santana. These two apple varieties are tolerated by many allergy sufferers because they do not produce a certain enzyme at all or only in small quantities. Another, rather unknown variety is my personal, all-time favourite: Ladina. So you see: there is a lot of variety in the apple orchard! Although harvesting is the most stressful time of the year for us, it is also the most beautiful: you harvest the fruit that you have worked for all year. In order for this time not to be predominantly marked by stress we need people to help us. We have a more or less permanent team of men and women who help us with the harvest. When it comes to packing our apples and pears, women power is the order of the day: 5 women, including me, make sure that everything is packed properly. We attach great importance to paying and treating all our employees fairly (and of course at least according to the minimum wage), which is thanked in a cordial cooperation and always returning helpers. Of course, there is always some fruit that is not suitable for sale. We hand these over to a cider factory, which processes them into juices or applesauce for us. Even the rotten apples that are not delivered to the cidery find a valuable use: they are used to feed wild animals in a nearby game preserve. In this way, we even make red deer and wild boars happy.