In Austria MIXED is implemented by BOKU (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna) and based on a still ongoing FiBl-project with Demeter farmers of the organic fruit producer platform ‘Von Herzen Biobauern’, which will be expanded by including additional farms.
Although in Austria small-scale agriculture is clearly dominating, the specialization of farms continues to progress. Fewer and fewer farms practice both animal husbandry and arable, vegetable and fruit farming. This leads to a concentration of the different branches in some regions with decreasing resilience of the farms.
The increasing consumer demand for high-quality, organic food is increasingly satisfied by professionalized agricultural production. In organic agriculture, too, specialization and a tendency towards industrialization can be observed as side effects of the increase in efficiency. With the expansion of organic fruit-growing area and the increasing demand for appropriate marketing, more and more challenges arise concerning the ecologically appropriate regulation of pest populations.
In the meantime, organic laying hens are also being kept in larger flocks. The outdoor runs are mostly insufficiently structured and hens intensively use the area near the barns. The high nutrient inputs in the proximity of the barns are increasingly and critically discussed.
These two value chains have so far existed completely separately. The integration of animal husbandry into the cycle of professional fruit production has been completely lost over the last few decades. To counteract this development, particularly committed organic farmers have developed a new concept in cooperation with FiBL, called “Apple Hens”: Organic eggs are produced in small mobile houses directly in the orchards. There are plans to re-establish “Apple Hens” on many organic fruit growing and arable farms in Austria.
Lukas Tremetsberger from the radiostation Ö1 visited the Austrian MIXED farm from Hansi und Irene Trummer and produced an impressive radio report about our Apple Hens.
You can read more about it here or follow the direct link to the podcast site here
The podcast is in German.
Same same but different: Austrian Farmer Network exchange to Switzerland
Copper levels in eggs from laying hens “Apple Hens” in biodynamic apple orchards
Helpful guidelines for taking good pictures in scientific projects
At the end of the MIXED project, the Austrian "Apple Hen Network", in cooperation with BOKU University, invited participants to a final stakeholder / policy workshop. The workshop took place on January 23, 2025, as an online meeting. After the general project presentation and a presentation of the implementation of the apple hen idea - integration of extensive laying hen farming in mobile micro-stalls in professional organic fruit orchards - the findings and political recommendations from four years of the MIXED project were presented and then discussed in this high-profile workshop. The results build on the broad basis of the MIXED project: fourteen farmer networks, 19 scientific institutions in ten European countries.
As in other networks, the following challenges were particularly evident in the Austrian apple chicken project. The decision to "bring a little more liveliness to specialised apple orchards through laying hens" sounds simple, but implementation requires a lot of development work, holistic knowledge, new technical skills, the willingness to explore new marketing channels and clever communication. For example, the framework conditions of the professionalisation of fruit production that has been pushed for years simply do not allow for the presence of livestock in commercial orchards. In close cooperation of the five Styrian pioneering companies with BOKU University, most of the challenges have been solved over the years.
The recommendations from the project findings were discussed constructively in the second part of the workshop. The Austrian policy makers reported that the most recently updated agri-environmental program ÖPUL now provides opportunities to apply for funding for MIXED farming. The long-term nature of the creation of agroforestry areas and the interaction of several cultures and levels in agroforestry are also challenges that still need to be solved in subsequent funding programs.
Reinhard Gessl
Mail: reinhard.gessl@boku.ac.at
Phone: +43 676 4059098
Werner Zollitsch
Mail: werner.zollitsch@boku.ac.at
Phone: +43 1 47654 93211
Gwendolyn Prehofer
Mail: Gwendolyn.prehofer@boku.ac.at
Phone: +43 664 3082299
