Guru Geri is an organic farmer
I was grown up on a farm, and already with 18 years I was clear that I like to become a farmer as well: an organic farmer. I like to use my hands, to improvise and to work with soil, livestock and machines. I started 1983 to study agriculture, first at the Faculty of Organic Agriculture of the University of Kassel, but shifted to the University of Göttingen in 1984, not so far away from Kassel. Because the professors did not like organic, me and my friends have bought in 1986 a farm close to the former boarder of the German Democratic Republic, in Bischhausen, and started a self sufficient and Organic farm as community. Beside this own farming, we have launched the first organic beer and wine trader north of the Germany. As student I was working every summer as helper on farms (all conventional) as tractor and combiner driver in the harvest. Additionally, I was some years several weeks helping on Swiss alps in herding and milking. That was a very good experience. After I have finished my study in 1989, I focused on tropical agriculture and spent some years in Africa and South America. My PhD was about Hunger prevention strategies of nomads in the Sahel (Sudan). After finished my PhD in 1993, I went back to the University of Kassel, Witzenhausen, to do post-doc research in Biotope management with livestock. In this area I made may habilitation and became in 2000 director of the German Research Institute of Organic Farming in Trenthorst. Always was practical farming my pleasure and frame.
