Erve Kiekebos

Erve Kiekebos is an 18-hectare community farm on the Breestraat in Empe that raises Lakenvelder beef, vegetables, berries and grain in one mixed, regenerative system.

The Lakenvelders, a rare Dutch heritage breed, are kept outside by preference with a deep-litter barn (potstal) to go into, and graze among some 1,400 fruit and nut trees in the farm's agroforestry plots (bosgaard); the grazing, trampling and manure keep the soil healthy enough that the farm needs almost no outside inputs. The beef comes as a frozen, vacuum-packed box of about 5 kg from the whole animal, or by the cut. Grain from their fields is sold as flour and baked into three sourdough loaves with Bakkerij de Winkel in Brummen. The 0.7-hectare market garden is grown regeneratively, though their website does not say whether synthetic sprays or fertiliser are excluded.

The farm shop is open on Fridays from 11:00 to 17:00 and Saturdays from 10:00 to 16:00, and there is a webshop. Joining as a harvest shareholder (oogstaandeelhouder) means paying a fixed amount for the season and collecting a weekly basket of vegetables from mid-May; a shop subscription instead lets you choose part of what you take home. Berries from 800 bushes can be picked yourself, and anyone can become a co-owner of the farm.

Ponds, hedges and wet patches of land are kept for wild plants and animals alongside the crops.