Heinz Erven

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Heinz Erven (born January 25, 1900 in Brühl (Rhineland) ; † June 23, 1993 ) was a German farmer . He was a pioneer of the practice in the field of organic growing of fruits and vegetables .

Life

Heinz Erven, son of the Brühl architect Matthias Erven (see under Max Ernst Museum ), attended the grammar school in Brühl. He became a volunteer in an agricultural enterprise on the Lower Rhine and studied agriculture in Bonn. As a qualified farmer , he completed a two-semester training course in education at the Höhere Landwirtschaftsschule in Kleve . During the semester break, he went on study trips at home and abroad. Erven then worked for ten years as an agricultural and vegetable farmer in Krefeld .

He later moved to Berlin. There Erven worked for many years as a journalist at Scherl- Verlag (Scherl ( Hugenberg ) Verlag) and edited the agricultural magazine “Practical Guide for Agriculture and Vegetable Growing”. In addition to this activity, he managed a 1,000 square meter garden in Berlin-Grünau according to biological criteria.

As a soldier, Erven spent a long time in Holland , where he had to provide for the city's population from his own farm. After returning from captivity during the Second World War, he suffered a motorcycle accident in 1948 and spent a long hospital stay in Kranenburg on the Lower Rhine. In this phase the decisive turning point in his life occurred; After losing his material and professional existence in Berlin, he went looking for a piece of land. The settlement authorities assigned him and his wife Lilly 6.5 hectares of land between Remagen and Bad Neuenahr, which Erven called "Paradise". In the early days of the management of this site, Erven worked for three years as a biology teacher at the state high school in Bad Neuenahr .

He managed 6.5 hectares of land near Remagen am Rhein and had been working since 1948 without using any salty fertilizers and without herbicides , insecticides or fungicides . Heinz Erven called this area “paradise” with the intention of extracting products from unspoilt earth that serve health without the use of questionable, sometimes questionable agricultural chemicals, while maintaining the permanent fertility of the soil.

In 1959, Erven opened a “private biological research and teaching institute” on the site, the first of its kind in Germany, which was reported on in several magazines. Heinz Erven has been giving lectures in the winter months in Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, Belgium and Holland since around 1970. In 1971 Oswald Hitschfeld (1904–1993; farmer, agricultural advisor, author) reported in a book about Erven's paradise. The second edition of the book took place in 1976.

He clarifies Erven's attitude towards science and universities in the foreword of his book Mein Paradies (1981): “You learn more comprehensively in the woods than in books. Wood and stones teach you what you cannot hear from the professors. ”(Quoted from the Latin original by Bernhard von Clairvaux ). Erven received the quote in a letter dated July 16, 1977 from Heinrich Carl Weltzien , director and professor at the Institute for Plant Diseases in Bonn, who had recently visited the private biological research and teaching institute .

In 1973 the Erven couple got to know Ursula Venator, who from that time was entrusted with organizing the lectures and correspondence of the research institute. Venator later took over the legacy of the Erven couple and continued the business using biodynamic cultivation methods . In 1979 his wife Lilli Erven (née Mertens) died.

In 1980, in recognition of the merits of the citizen of Remagen, the city named the street that leads past the Erven site to go from “Auf Plattborn” to “Am Paradies”. On May 14, 1990, Heinz Erven was awarded the plaque of honor of the Ahrweiler district as a pioneer in organic farming and for the services associated with it in the field of nature and environmental protection .

Erven received appreciation for his achievements as a pioneer in organic farming from Jo Leinen and Gustav Wellenstein . For his pioneering work since 1948 and his commitment to the development of an ecological fruit and vegetable area, Erven was awarded the Organic Farming Prize in 1990 , donated by Würzburger Hofbräu AG.

Erven's self-published book "Mein Paradies" in 1981 appears in the Netherlands in 1981 and 1986 ( Mijn Paradijs . De Kleine Aarde, Boxtel ), and in 1984 in France ( Mon paradis. 32 années d'expérience d'un praticien du maraîchage et de l'arboriculture biologiques . Terre vivante, Paris ) and 2006 in Romania ( Paradisul meu. Experienta de 32 de ani a unui specialist în legumicultura si pomicultura biologica . Editura Altius Media, Colectia Agricultura ecologica).

Publications

  • Erven, Heinz. 1981: My Paradise - 32 years of experience of a practitioner in natural fruit and vegetable cultivation . Heinz Erven, Remagen. With contributions by Ursula Venator and Dietmar Schröder (Institute for Soil Science at the University of Bonn).
  • Erven, Heinz. 2006: My raised beds - optimal yields in the smallest garden space . EMU Verlag, Lahnstein, ISBN 3-89189-150-4 .

Documentaries

  • The happy farmer in paradise, 1977. WDR Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln , editor: Fritz Breuer / film authors: Hans Diedenhofen and Barbara Rast, 45 min. TV movie.
  • Fruits without poison - Heinz Erven and his paradise (documentary), Hans-Ernst Weitzel, 1987. WDR, Weitzel Filmproduktion, Spabrücken . 16 mm optical sound film / VHS video cassette, 29 min: The film introduces the “Paradise”, the organic fruit growing company of almost 90-year-old Heinz Erven. For decades it has completely dispensed with poison and artificial fertilizers and still has above-average yields. He describes his basic ideas when setting up the farm and gives valuable tips for near-natural fruit growing, which can be used both in private gardens and in commercial operations. (Locations: see web links).

literature

  • Hitschfeld, Oswald. 1979: Paradies - the private biological teaching and research institute of Dipl. Landw. Heinz Erven . Heinrich Schwab Verlag KG, Schopfheim, 2nd edition, ISBN 978-3-7964-0020-9 ( ISBN 3-7964-0020-5 ).
  • Spitta, Gudrun. 2002: biography of the life and work of Heinz Erven . In: Gudrun Spitta, Karin Vach: Important women and unusual men. A lexicon for school children . Kallmeyer, Seelze-Velber, ISBN 3-7800-2037-8 .

Press reports

swell

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Erven, Heinz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German farmer; Pioneer in the field of natural growing of fruits and vegetables
DATE OF BIRTH January 25, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Bruehl (Rhineland)
DATE OF DEATH June 23, 1993