MEP Andreas Schwab finds out about the organic beef program
During a visit to the Goldbachhof in Bernau as part of his summer tour, the South Baden MEP Andreas Schwab exchanged views on the EU organic regulation with representatives of the Schwarzwald Bio-Weiderind producer association and EDEKA Südwest on Monday, July 25th, 2022.
“We were particularly pleased that Mr. Schwab chose our company as a stop on his summer tour and took a lot of time for personal exchange and our concerns,” says Markus Kaiser, chairman of the Black Forest Organic Weiderind producer association. The regional branded meat program stands for premium organic quality meat from the Black Forest. For more than 20 years, the producer association Schwarzwald Bio-Weiderind and EDEKA Südwest have been working closely and trustingly together, initiated by the EDEKA salesman Michael Schmidt from Rickenbach in the Waldshut district. EDEKA Südwest offers the agricultural businesses long-term contracts with fixed prices and secured purchase quantities and takes on the marketing of the products via numerous EDEKA markets in the southwest. Animal husbandry takes place according to the strict regulations of the organic farming association Naturland, which go beyond the requirements of the EU organic regulation. The concrete implementation by the farmers in the context of grazing on steep slopes and in high valleys of the southern Black Forest was part of the exchange with the South Baden MEP Andreas Schwab.
Grazing and suckler cow husbandry
Almost 200 farms from the district of Waldshut, the Upper Black Forest and the Freiburg and Offenburg area now form the Schwarzwald Bio-Weiderind producer association. The organic beef has been available at the service counters of the EDEKA stores in the southwest since 1998, and in the stores of the EDEKA merchant family Schmidt from Rickenbach in the Waldshut district before that. The member farms keep their cows in open pastures from spring to autumn, so that the cows only feed on lush grass and meadow herbs. In winter they get hay and silage. In addition to feed without genetic engineering, the regulations of the program also include the renunciation of chemical-synthetic fertilizers and plant protection products as well as growth promoters. What is also special about Black Forest organic pasture cattle is the suckler cow husbandry,
