Sepp Holzer Austrian 'Rebel Farmer' - Beyond the Ordinary Dot Net

~~~ Sepp Holzer ~~~
Austrian 'Rebel Farmer' learning from and working with Nature, not against it. Creating
nutritious abundance with no chemicals, no irrigation, less work, less cost, more beauty!

Sepp began doing permaculture at age 5, although he wouldn't know that term until decades later. As an adult he created a fabulous wonderland of abundance and beauty on the family farm in the Austrian alps, at elevations where things should not grow, but he has always trusted only his own knowledge and experience from working with nature, so things grew. At one time he thought to go to Agriculture school and learn from the experts. He applied the professional training on his farm, and most everything died! He says "we complicate everything, we make things so complicated they don't work anymore." He observed that commercial agriculture makes plants dependent on humans as they become addicted to the growth chemicals and pesticides. So basically that carrot and apple you ate grew up in a drug addicted home! "It's not life supporting nutrition, it just fills your belly... nutrition should be your medicine."

Sepp is passionate about how simple this is to do, to observe nature and enter the symbiotic relationship with it, where humans do belong as part of the whole. This includes animals, he doesn't keep animals in mass, he says that is torture and bad food for the human, what are antibiotics and hormones doing in our beef, chicken, milk and eggs other than increasing bulk pounds for profit? [ED: Have you looked into the eyes of a commercially bred cow lately? Does that animal look right to you? ohboy... "hold me back, hold me back..." but we know this, yet push it back because we think we can do nothing about it! Isn't it time to change that? There are options, they just take effort. And change.]

Among the projects he has developed around the world, including the first wheelchair Holzer Permakultur installation in Europe, he came upon the children in Thailand who live off landfills to survive. This haunted him greatly. He experienced a dream about how to help the children by making "sausages" to grow things, it worked beautifully and he was moved by how happy and grateful the children were for this gift. This system also works on balconies and yards in cities.
Sepp sees that in our blown up administration system our children are dumbed down, they learn only theory they cannot apply to gain the experience. When he teaches in his workshops it is 50% theory and 50% practice.

On his farm Krameterhof earthworms are one of the most important staff members. Of course the worm staff stays home on the farm while he travels... he is arranging to come to America several times a year. We are so happy that Sepp and his son Josef Andreas came to our neck of the woods and made time to be on BTO despite a very crowded schedule! We very much look forward to seeing them again.

At: krameterhof.at (German) & krameterhof.at/en (English) are videos and Sepp's Open Letter to Members of the Political, Economic and Scientific Communities: "My Vision for a Responsible, Natural Life." You can also find DVDs and books to begin to do as Sepp does, experiment, grow your own fresh, nutritious food, and get to know Nature!