Das Prinzip der Gesundheit als Leitmotiv des Handelns in der betrieblichen Praxis

Summary

We aim to create an international network of farmers and scientists to jointly develop new and interdisciplinary approaches to health measurement and research in
ecological agriculture. First, to establish common ground, we identified personal principles and strategies of best practice that make organic farmers successful in
running healthy farm systems. Building on this practice experience and findings from a former research project (Vieweger & Döring, 2015), we aim to produce a set of
transferable strategies to increase the direct translation of organic principles into practice and improve the understanding of health concepts in practice. For the
identification of example farmers in three countries (Austria, Germany, UK), we used an online survey, asking farmers to describe how they understand health concepts on
their farm and what methods they use to improve it. The results have contributed to a pre-selection of possible best practice farmers, which were followed by interviews with
local experts (e.g. advisors, certifiers) who have long-standing knowledge of the suggested farmers and their systems. Here we describe outcomes of this identification
process.