Austria’s “Rebel Farmer” Holzer and His Permaculture
Anyone who has completed a permaculture design course will be no stranger to the name Sepp Holzer. A pioneer of permaculture, Holzer is virtually a household name in Austria, and his book Sepp Holzer’s Permaculture has served as an introductory guide for permaculture enthusiasts the world over.
This June, I travelled deep into the Central Alps to Krameterhof, the farm Holzer founded, where I joined more than twenty fellow students from around the world for a two-day guided tour and training course organised by the farm.
More than a decade ago, the ageing Sepp Holzer had already handed over this 45-hectare farm to his son. Remarkably garrulous, the younger Holzer, Josef Andreas Holzer, led us through two demanding days of sessions.
I. Learning from Nature
The region of the Central Alps where Krameterhof is situated is relatively dry; rainfall is not only scarce but also irregular, and a single downpour can trigger flash floods.
Though these are natural hazards, human activity has played its part: since the eighteenth century, the expansion of intensive agriculture and forestry has led to the filling in of ponds and lakes that once dotted the slopes, replaced by cereal crops or commercial timber. Rebuilding the ponds is precisely an effort to restore the area’s original topography and ecology, thereby mitigating the destructive impact of flash floods.
Beyond their role in flood prevention, the native crayfish farmed in the ponds are one of the farm’s main sources of income.
In 2022, I spent over half a year conducting fieldwork on aquaculture in the Sangyuan Wei (mulberry-fish pond dyke) system near Foshan. That experience made me particularly attentive to the self-sufficiency of integrated land-and-water farming. The traditional Chinese mulberry–fish pond system operates on a cycle: nutrient-rich pond sludge is commonly used to fertilise the mulberry trees planted on the surrounding embankments. So I asked the younger Holzer whether he ever composted the pond sludge.
He shook his head gravely: “If I were to compost the pond sludge, my heart would bleed.”
In intensive aquaculture, failure to regularly clear the pond bottom allows large amounts of uneaten feed and fish faeces to accumulate, readily causing eutrophication of the sludge – turning it black and foul-smelling – and ultimately leading to disease among the fish. At Krameterhof, however, stocking densities are far lower, and the natural ecosystem of the ponds largely maintains its balance. Abundant benthic fauna plays a crucial role in decomposition, ensuring that the pond sludge never becomes a threat to the crayfish or the fish.
We continued along the winding mountain paths, where terraces of every kind were set at intervals into the curves of the hillside, each one serving a different purpose.
The farm’s yellow cattle roamed freely across the slopes, grazing at will. Holzer had planted the hillsides throughout with a prized medicinal herb: yellow gastrodia. We worried the cattle might eat it, affecting the farm’s income.
He explained with quiet pride that his experiments had shown the yellow cattle, deterred by the herb’s bitterness, would never touch the gastrodia. Instead, they grazed on other weeds, clearing space for the gastrodia to grow.
It may well be the abundance of seed-eating birds that lured a pair of buzzards to settle here. The buzzards do not simply prey on smaller birds; from time to time they also snatch chicks from the farm – which is, in effect, their “payment”. For the farm, golden eagles that hunt fully grown hens and geese pose a far greater threat, yet the buzzard pair will occasionally drive golden eagles away to defend their territory.
During the tour, one could not help but be struck by how both Holzers had devoted themselves to understanding how to work in collaboration with the animals. In anthropology and cultural studies, multi-species ethnography has long been an established approach, attending to the role of non-human actors in shaping social, economic and political relations rather than treating humans as the sole agents. Krameterhof offers a textbook case of multi-species collaboration, demonstrating how animals participate in building an agricultural ecosystem.
II. Respecting Limits
The natural conditions at Krameterhof are far from ideal: the climate is cold and the winters long and severe. Ill-prepared for the cold, we shivered even in summer as the younger Holzer laid out his agricultural philosophy. “If you are to pursue sustainable agriculture,” he stressed, “do not over-rely on modern technology to push beyond the limits of the land.”
Many people assume that the Alpine hillside where the farm sits is suited only to pine plantations and grazing, yet in reality, intensive livestock farming is one of the primary causes of soil degradation in the Alpine region. Both Holzers have rejected the intensive exploitation of the land. By restoring the original system of terrace ponds, they have solved the problem of water retention on the slopes and laid the groundwork for diversity in both cultivation and husbandry.
The younger Holzer also spoke about the limitations of the self as a farmer. They would never begin by executing a grand, blueprint-style plan; instead, they launch one small experimental project each year, building on the farm’s existing state. He believes that truly understanding a particular piece of land is a slow process. Overestimating one’s own abilities and one’s grasp of nature will, more often than not, backfire.
In fact, the farm’s experimental projects fail quite often, too. But because each one requires only a modest outlay, failure rarely results in a substantial loss. Once a project succeeds, it can be seamlessly integrated into the farm’s existing ecosystem, driving the farm’s prosperity.
The farm, for instance, now has 72 ponds of varying shapes and functions, all interconnected into a water network. The elevation differences allow hydroelectric generation that meets virtually all of the farm’s day-to-day needs.
The actions of both Holzers may seem rebellious, yet they rest on a thoroughly pragmatic foundation. Whenever they venture into something “unconventional”, they carefully weigh the economic returns. During the course, the younger Holzer stressed the importance of ecological diversity on several occasions, yet what I heard was not tired moralistic rhetoric but, for the most part, pragmatic economic reasoning.
He told us that diversified planting had saved the farm on more than one occasion. After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, for example, radioactive fallout drifted across central and western Europe, and consumers in Germany and Austria grew afraid of eating wild mushrooms. As recently as 2021, wild mushrooms in Bavaria were still being found to contain levels of caesium-137 above the statutory limit. Many mushroom farms growing a single crop went bankrupt as a result.
Mushrooms were one of Krameterhof’s main products at the time, too, but the farm weathered the crisis thanks to the diversity of its output. Today, Krameterhof’s activities include aquaculture, livestock, fruit-tree cultivation, beekeeping, aquaculture, forestry, mushroom growing, and the cultivation of spices and medicinal plants.
Although the last of these now far exceeds produce sales in economic contribution, he insists on the economic independence of each pillar. He believes that if the income from the other activities were used to subsidise farming, agricultural production would eventually become nothing more than a hobby, and the latter two pillars would risk losing their foundations.
III. Reflection
Perhaps, as the younger Holzer himself always stresses, they may learn very little at all – not simply because the course lasts only two days, but because Krameterhof’s model has grown out of its own particular circumstances, and every person’s and every farm’s situation is different.
Yet perhaps everyone can take something from it as a point of reference. As a methodology, whether it is “becoming aware of the limitations of the land and of oneself, and turning disadvantages into advantages”, or simply pragmatic ambition, it is a valuable reminder for newcomers to agriculture. Even as a complete outsider to agricultural practice, I have keenly felt where these ideas overlap with the ways of working in cultural studies and art that I know so well.
On the way back, the pine plantations and dairy farms surrounding Krameterhof pulled me back to reality. In truth, monoculture and intensive production still dominate Austrian agriculture and forestry, and the permaculture that the Holzers champion has only limited influence. The younger Holzer’s emphasis on closeness to nature and the idyllic agricultural landscape could not help but strike me as tinged with a hint of utopianism.
So the following questions still merit consideration: we do need to learn from nature, but have we also cast it as a world unto itself and a panacea for contemporary ills? How can alternative agriculture move beyond a purely spiritual refuge, gain wider recognition and adoption, and encourage the public to engage with broader, more socially rooted agricultural concerns?
None of this has a settled answer yet, but the course at Krameterhof has at least prompted me to think further.
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Editor: Ze’en