Dairy, beef and dual-purpose donkeys

The Konrad family has been farming on the outskirts of Vaduz, the capital of the tiny landlocked country of Liechtenstein—the sixth smallest country in the world—since 1960.

Though just second-generation farmers, the enterprising blood of the German-speaking household has been in full flow in recent years.

Following an unacceptably low milk price 10 years ago, farm manager Christian Konrad says he was “working day and night” on his then 62-cow dairy system but was “really making no money at all”.

They took a long, hard look at the viability of their business model and decided it was time to diversify Neufeldhof Farm.

A decade later, milk price has rallied to a much more appealing 0.60-0.63 Swiss francs per litre (approximately 64-67c/l), yet the family has no intention of returning their 33ha holding, situated between the Alps, the River Rhine and the Swiss border, back into a specialised dairy system.

Mixed system

Today Christian, along with his wife Heike and sons Frank (17) and Leo (14), milk 40 Brown Swiss and Holstein cows, producing approximately 250,000l of milk per year, which is processed for cheese at their local dairy.

They also have 20 beef cattle, five-to-10 head of young stock and 15 donkeys that are “a little bit of a hobby but also serve a purpose”. A further 14% of their holding is dedicated to ecological services to support biodiversity.

In addition, over the last decade, Heike started a farm shop where she sells their beef, veal, chicken, eggs, cheese, fresh raw milk, yoghurt, jams and donkey meat. Donkey meat has become a big hit with customers, according to Christian, who explains that last year they made their first-ever salami from it.

The Konrads’ also provide on-farm and direct catering for events and local businesses, including the fire department, plus an Airbnb service for farm-seeking tourists.

While they also normally grow 4ha of carrots and potatoes as part of a five-year crop rotation, they opted not to sow this year as their mapping plan didn’t quite add up.

Discussing how their system operates between the home farm and their alpine pasture during a farm visit as part of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists 2024 Congress, Christian says: “The milking cows stay here at the barn, and they are milked in the parlour.

“The cows have nine-to-10 lactations on average and calve for the first time at 35-36 months—about three years.

“The reason for that is when the animals are older they are more resilient, but it’s also for when they go on the alp. It means I can take them up for two seasons before they are ready to come into production.

“The cows are all purebred; no crossing. For all the Holsteins there is artificial insemination (AI) and with the Brown Swiss we do AI once or twice, but the bull is here to do the clean-up if anything gets missed.

“The cows produce 7,200 to 7,500l/year. On solids, they average 4.5% fat, increasing to 4.8/4.9% in the winter and 3.5% protein.

“All the milk goes to a dairy in the next village that is producing cheese made from milk produced in Liechtenstein.

Christian adds that Liechtenstein is also known for producing potatoes, grains and maize, as well as grassland, but now with climate change, the season is getting longer and longer.

“We can grow cereals and harvest them earlier, and when we have warm Septembers, Octobers, Novembers, and Decembers, this is good for farmers too.

“But we do have challenges with too much rain or drought. We’re lucky that we don’t have carrots and potatoes this year because it rained so much.”

The Konrad’s keep their young stock, older cows and finishing cattle on their alp during the summer months where they have access to permanent grassland. Two-to-three cows on the alp also provide cheese to sell at their farm store.

But keeping the alpine land grazeable and preventing forest cover from encroaching is becoming a bigger challenge, says Christian.

“This is where the donkeys play a key role. In concentrated areas, the donkeys will eat small shrubs and trees, so I really need them to keep the forest in check. Goats help too.

“But managing overgrowth isn’t the only threat up there.

“This was the first year that we had a bear sighting around the end of May. Wolves are also a challenge in the mountain region between Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Austria.

“About 300m to 400m away from our alp, a wolf has been attacking sheep. There are several packs in the area that are causing huge problems,” he adds.

Subsidies

State subsidies are vital to improving farm incomes in Liechtenstein. Similar to neighbouring Switzerland, the state pays farmers for ecological services, landscape conservation and animal welfare rendered in the public interest.

Subsidies for the management of the Alps are paid in the form of a contribution to the costs of alpine pastures.

This is composed of a basic payment based on livestock stocking rate and a surcharge for care expenses and maintenance, including weed control, pasture clearance, manure management and rotational grazing.

“We have approximately the same system as in Switzerland; it’s not quite one-to-one, but it’s very similar and the payment comes on top of the milk price.

“We are very closely aligned to Switzerland so any products that aren’t sold directly to consumers here are sold into Switzerland,” he said.

Future plans

Asked about future farm plans, Christian says his son Leo wants to be a farmer but is first completing an apprenticeship in car mechanics and playing football for the under-15 Liechtenstein national soccer team.

“It is possible for us to expand cow numbers. Lichtenstein has a quota system and so there is a countrywide quota of 14.6m litres of milk production per year, which is similar to what 40,000 people need for one year of consumption.

“Currently farmers here are producing about 12m litres so we could expand, but to get permits for a new barn expansion is a very long and complicated process; it takes maybe two-or-three years from when the farmer decides to make a new barn to when you can start to build it.

“The reason the quota has not been reached is because the full 14.6m was never fully allocated to farmers and, in the last several years, quite a few large farmers have stopped producing.

“The largest dairy farm would have about 120 cows; there are a few producers with 70-80 cows, and then, here in the valley, small farmers like us have about 40 cows.

“In the mountain areas, it would be a range of six-to-15 cows on average; the largest would have about 30 cows in the mountains.

“We’re having discussions right now about our own farm and the potential of using robots.

“Our current parlour was set up in 1996, but the future will not be milking cows the way that we have been.

“Our sons want robots, so this is what we’re talking about as we think of what needs to be replaced for the next generation,” he explains.

The municipality of Vaduz recently established a ‘nutrition field’ to impart knowledge about responsible and sustainable regional food production to the community. The field, managed by the Konrad family, is 1.2ha in size.

Alongside informing people about the scarcity of soil as a resource and demonstrating the diversity of crops that exist locally, crops are also grown that are no longer cultivated in Liechtenstein, such as ribel corn, soy and buckwheat.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, project manager Dr Florian Bernardi explained the multi-faceted importance of the concept.

“We started this project for kids to give them more knowledge because they don’t know where our food comes from, they don’t know about our farms, they don’t know that cows are producing milk or how beans grow.

“We have 2000m2 of arable land per person available worldwide; in Liechtenstein only 400m2. So far we’ve planted grains, maize, soy beans and potatoes.”

Food is also made from the crops that are sold at local farmers’ markets and stores, such as dried rice, noodles from buckwheat, corn flour or polenta, Dr Florian explains.

“When we put potatoes in their hands and they put them in the soil, they get the message that not every product can be everywhere all the time or that milk is not coming from trees,” he adds.

There are just 95 farms, mostly located in the Alpine valley area.

Average farm size ranges depending on mountain zone location.

Just 306 people are directly employed in agriculture.

is permanent grassland. The remaining 40% is arable land, with approximately two-thirds used for growing crops for animal feed.

Liechtenstein is just 50% self-sufficient in food.

A third (approximately 5,300ha) of the country’s total land area is cultivated for agriculture.

Some 95% of the agricultural land is leased by farmers.