Agricultural Commune near Freiburg breaks new ground

As a group of small and large people, we live on the Schafhof near Freiburg. There we organize our life and work together as a political commune. For three years we have been successfully realizing our vision of an open and lively place with a lot of encouragement.

The Schafhof has been run as an ecologically certified company since the 1990s. The operating areas are located in the low mountain range and include 60 ha of permanent grassland and 25 ha of forest. We run the farm on the Schafhof in the form of a collective. Together we are developing the existing business further in order to establish regenerative and sustainable agriculture on the farm. For us, in times of the climate crisis, this means working towards systems that will endure over the long term. This includes the expansion of agroforestry systems, the establishment of sophisticated pasture management and intelligent water use concepts. Furthermore, it is of great importance to us to regard nature conservation goals and agriculture as a symbiosis and to make a contribution to the preservation of biodiversity.

Our main focus is suckler cow husbandry, orchards, horse boarding, sheep husbandry for landscape maintenance and the keeping of dual-purpose chickens in mobile stables. We work according to Bioland guidelines and produce high-quality and delicious food, which we market directly and regionally.

The collective management is embedded in the “Schafhof community”. By living together as a community, we realize a cooperative and creative use of the Schafhof. On the basis of solidarity, we want to implement socially acceptable agriculture in order to make a contribution to revitalizing rural areas. It is important to us to design an open place that is in direct contact with the village structures as well as with municipal initiatives from Freiburg.

Together with the Kulturland Genossenschaft, the entire area of ​​the Schafhof is to be converted into a public welfare-oriented and deprived form. In this way, the Schafhof can be designed as a self-governing and lively place in the long term. This ensures the continued existence and further development of a diverse and small-scale agriculture.