Grias di dear CrowdFarmer,
My name is Ramona Besler. My professional path first led me to social work. During my studies I worked on a small goat farm in Spain during semester break - to feel my body and not just my head. This month really touched me and grounded me. It showed me that I felt much more at home in agriculture - in touch with nature, animals, physical activity and the seasons - than in social pedagogy.
So I decided to train as a farmer on a Demeter farm at Lake Constance. After my apprenticeship, I gained further experience and impressions during an alpine summer in Switzerland and three very instructive years on the road on a traditional peregrination. I was then able to consolidate and deepen all these experiences, impressions and knowledge at the master school for organic farming.
It was at this time that I met my husband Tobias and his family. It was clear to me that after master school I wanted to go to a mountain farm and preferably work with dairy cows with horns. So it was probably fate that Tobias and my paths crossed.
We now have two small children, Madrisa and Wendelin. The two of them accompany us in our work. I am an all-rounder, to a certain extent, just like everyone else in our field. I am involved in all types of work - the stable, haying, office, cheese packaging, even fencing the pastures (my favorite job 😊). With so many pastures we have a lot of fences. And with our heavy snows (often two meters) in the winter we have to dismantle and rebuild them every year.
I share these jobs and many more with my husband Tobias, my father-in-law Hans and my brother-in-law Hannes. Tobias is also our mechanic and Hannes is also our dairy specialist spending 365 days a year in the alpine dairy for our delicious mountain cheese. My sister-in-law Kathi is also on board. She diligently takes care of the cheese shipping, supports us with mountain haying and our cows with herbal medicine. My mother-in-law Wiltrud looks after our holiday apartments.
If you would like to learn more about our everyday life and the life of our cows, you are welcome to receive our monthly Cow's Letter or take a farm tour with us.
For me, it is always rewarding to interact with our consumers and CrowdFarmers. It’s through this interaction that bridges can be built. I get a better idea of the people for whom we produce valuable food products. It also gives me a lot of pleasure to share my enthusiasm and to pass on what it means to be a farmer and what it involves.
At the same time, food is something essential for me. On the one hand in relation to our dealings with nature and the environment. On the other hand as the basis of human life. We want to create a real alternative to factory farming and industrial food production that allows people to consume animal products responsibly from ethically acceptable husbandry. It makes us happy to produce high-quality, healthy and tasty food products for our CrowdFarmers and we hope to be appreciated in the form of a fair income for our family.
By adopting a cow, you not only make an effective contribution to the preservation of mountain farming with species-appropriate animal husbandry, but at the same time you give yourself the gift of natural, valuable food.