Sometimes Matthias Vodermeier’s working days start at midnight. For example, when animals are picked up the next day and a lot still needs to be prepared. And sometimes the 37-year-old’s working days end at midnight. That is when the unforeseen comes up, when it is harvest time and an earlier end of the day is out of the question. No wonder the young farmer thinks for a long time when asked about his leisure activities and then shrugs his shoulders. Whenever he has free time, he says, he spends it with his family, with his wife Katharina, their three children – two girls, one boy – and grandma, who also lives on the farm.
In the future, however, he will probably have to squander a not inconsiderable part of his scarce free time for a new voluntary position: The Neufarner farmer was recently elected the new Ebersberg district chairman of the farmers’ association and succeeds Franz Lenz in this function, who after 20 years found that sometimes it has to be enough.
“Franz did a great job,” he says of his predecessor
Why do you do this? “In the past I have often expressed criticism of how politicians deal with agriculture,” he says. And because he wants the farmers’ association in the district to continue to speak with a clear voice – “Franz did a great job,” he says of his predecessor – and he knew that it is often difficult to find successors for leading positions in interest groups , he just thought that he could do it. With Martin Höher, the previous deputy, he agreed that both would apply to be district chairmen, he says, and that the one who gets fewer votes will then stand for election as deputy. Ultimately, a few more opted for Vodermeier, who was previously an assessor in the Parsdorf local association.
The calves can move freely in the barn – and when visitors come, they find it quite exciting.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
His new job may not only mean a lot of work for him, but also fun and exciting insights – at least that’s how his predecessor Franz Lenz felt. He looks back on an “moving, intense time”, he says, but is also pleased that a younger person is now taking the helm. The fact that Matthias Vodermeier has declared himself willing to take on responsibility “is to be commended in this day and age,” says Lenz. But Vodermeier also has a broad education, knows what it’s like outside of agriculture and has “both feet on the ground”, good prerequisites for the new job.
Vodermeier works conventionally, he doesn’t see anything in the change to organic
In fact, it could also have been that Matthias Vodermeier didn’t become a farmer at all. Although his family has been running the Lieblhof in Neufarn since 1904, he first trained as an electronics technician and worked for an engineering service provider in automotive development. “But farming was always an option for me,” he says. The older brother didn’t want to take over the family business anyway, so Matthias Vodermeier took the plunge in 2016. And that was a huge step. The family had already given up keeping animals in 1996, and for 20 years the Lieblhof was run as a part-time arable farm.
Katharina and Matthias Vodermeier decided in 2016 to take over the business. They take care of the animals together.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
Today, behind the farm on the outskirts of Neufarner, there is a barn that offers space for 330 calves. Vodermeier buys the calves when they are four to six weeks old and then fattens them until they are around six months old, after which they are sold on to the Mangfalltaler Jungbullen EG.
The modern barn is almost 11,000 square meters and the family will probably pay for it for a long time. In addition to Matthias Vodermeier, his wife Katharina also looks after the animals, watched curiously by Bene, the three-month-old Bernese Mountain Dog, the latest addition to the family. Even on one of the hottest days of the year, it’s still cool in the barn in the morning, which always changes during the day, says the farmer, but it doesn’t get stuffy because the bad air is sucked out through the floor during the day fresh air is pumped in from above. The calves stand on rubber mats and can walk around, only when they are sick and need treatment or are prepared for the market are they restrained, says the 37-year-old.
The young calves can get their milk – or rather the milk replacer – from an automatic feeder whenever they want, and they are not kept short, which is often criticized in calf rearing. Later there is self-produced feed for the calves made of hay, corn and wheat, only mineral feed is bought in. It is important to Katharina Vodermeier that antibiotics and other medications are not used, and she is experimenting with homeopathy. Vodermeier and his wife do many things the way organic farmers would, but becoming one himself was never his goal, says the farmer. “In my opinion, that goes too extreme in one direction, you would be too restricted,” he says. He wants to be able to choose for himself what he implements and what not.
And he also wants to make that clear to politicians, which would bring us back to the farmers’ association. “What bothers me the most is the ignorance,” he says. In his opinion, senseless measures are often decided without apparently being aware of the consequences. For example, the four percent rule, which stipulates that every farmer set aside four percent of his area after the harvest and plant nothing there. However, recultivation makes it difficult, says Vodermeier, and he believes that cultivating catch crops would make more sense. He wants to address this and many other topics in the coming months when he also makes his inaugural visits to the district. Because now, shortly after the election, there is no time for that. The harvest has just started – so the working days are getting very long again.