The Field Guideby Moss & MarrowBoerencamping Swarthoeve
- Cattle, sheep or goats graze on pasture in the grazing season
- No synthetic pesticides or fertiliser (certified)
- Closed-loop farming
Boerencamping Swarthoeve is a livestock farm with a 15-pitch campsite in the Wormer- en Jisperveld near Wormer, whose 20 cows and 50 sheep are sold as beef, veal and lamb in meat packages.
Their website describes the livestock farming as organic and fully self-sufficient, which means nothing is brought in from outside to keep the animals; we found a SKAL certificate at the farm's address, registered in the farmer's own name rather than as Swarthoeve. The cows are out in the meadows as much as possible, on about 16 hectares of grassland around the farm, and in winter they eat the farm's own grass, mown and baled in summer. Calves stay with their mothers and suckle. The sheep, Texels and Suffolks, live outside all year; only the ewes come into the barn together at the end of pregnancy, and the lambs are born there.
Now and then a butcher collects a cow or a lamb by arrangement and brings it back cut into packages. To buy, send an email, a WhatsApp message or call, and collect at the farm on the Engewormer; their website links price lists for beef and for veal.
The manure from the winter barn is collected and spread back on the meadows, timed around the breeding season of the meadow birds, and the grass is mown late in spring so young birds have time to grow.