26.09.2022

School on the farm is part of social agriculture in South Tyrol and is a school for tomorrow's society.

School on the farm - that sounds very strictly like teachers and learning - no - the school on the farm is the great outdoors, the classroom is the cowshed, the meadows or the forest, and the teachers are the animals and plants as well as the farmers who live and work on the farm.
When visiting farms, children and young people should be brought closer to our livelihood, to the natural relationships between soil, animals and food. School on the farm sees itself as a contribution to the promotion of responsible and environmentally conscious consumers of tomorrow. Its purpose is to make these people aware of the environment and to set the course for sustainable development.
Confucius, the well-known Chinese philosopher, put it in a nutshell by saying: “Tell me and I will forget it, - show me, and maybe I will keep it. Let me do it and I will be able to”.
It is the same with school projects that rely on lively learning, in which children create something meaningful with their own hands. Learning by doing is the motto! Specially trained farmers with a lot of competence pass on their specialist knowledge from everyday farming, thus creating the link between education and agriculture. Children experience up close how much work, dedication and values €‹€‹go into the work and products of a farm. It is important to us that children continue to know in the future how food is produced and how agriculture works. Children experience firsthand the interdependencies between agriculture and nature, the seasons and, above all, the weather. That we have no fixed office hours and there is no weekend: on Sundays and public holidays the animals also must be fed and milked. Many children se a live cow, hen, or pig for the first time in their life and when we tell them with joy that we have the most beautiful job in the world, they no longer understand us ... only if they go home after some time, everyone wants to “become a farmer”.
Depending on the orientation of the farm, there are various offers, e.g.
• From hay to milk, butter or all cheese ...
• From grain to bread ...
• Potatoes, the great tuber ...
• Fruit and its processing ...
• Get to know herbs and "weeds" ...
• Forest and wood ...
• Handicrafts with natural materials
• Felting and much more
Diversity is at home on our Untertrotnerhof. Here we operate dairy and forestry, rent out apartments for holidays on the farm, grow herbs, and devote ourselves to bees and beekeeping. There are cows, calves, pigs, a pony, rabbits, cats and chickens on the farm. We playfully get to know our animals in the stable and in the forest, we discover different trees, leaves, berries and herbs.
To think about: "At least once in your life you need a doctor, a lawyer, a pastor, & a policeman. But however, a farmer you need three times a day”