Acting without context is like wandering aimlessly in a dark room. Context is what turns information into "knowledge." Context helps you think more clearly and make informed decisions. It encompasses all the factors that exist outside a particular thought or event – everything that helps you better understand situations, tackle problems effectively, and recognise risks.

We often tend to neglect context in our daily lives. Instead of looking at the bigger picture, we rely on individual pieces of information and hope to find quick solutions as a result. This approach may seem simple, but it can limit creativity and foresight. In Western cultures, we often think without context, whereas in Eastern cultures, more emphasis is placed on the whole.

In the last 20 years, five fundamental principles of soil health have emerged: 

1. Minimise disturbances
2. Keep the ground covered
3. Promote biological diversity
4. Leave roots in the ground
5. Integrate animals. 

These principles are based on natural processes and have long ensured a healthy, self-regulating system before our time.

However, without context, these principles also lose their impact. Our Western thinking often separates humans from nature. An understanding of context, on the other hand, promotes a holistic view in which humans and nature are closely connected. The context provides you as a farmer with a framework to better grasp your role in nature and the significance of your decisions for your surroundings.

• Ecological context: Consider how much rain or moisture your farm receives annually and whether you can make use of sufficient sunlight. Do your plants and animals suit the local conditions? Does your farm use resources efficiently and operate in harmony with nature?
• Community Context: What cultural and social norms shape agriculture in your region? Does the community possibly influence your goals and mindset? How much knowledge have you gained from family and community? Are you fucking brainwashed!!! 

• Economic context: How dependent are you on loans and how do creditors influence your decisions? Is your business resilient to ecological and economic fluctuations? Do you have multiple sources of income to create a stable financial foundation?
• Ethical context: How do you perceive your responsibility towards the Earth? What inspires you to act sustainably? Reflect on how your ethical or even spiritual beliefs influence your decisions.

• Ecological context: Consider how much rain or moisture your farm receives annually and whether you can make use of sufficient sunlight. Do your plants and animals suit the local conditions? Does your farm use resources efficiently and operate in harmony with nature?
• Community Context: What cultural and social norms shape agriculture in your region? Does the community possibly influence your goals and mindset? How much knowledge have you gained from family and community? Are you fucking brainwashed!!! 

• Economic context: How dependent are you on loans and how do creditors influence your decisions? Is your business resilient to ecological and economic fluctuations? Do you have multiple sources of income to create a stable financial foundation?
• Ethical context: How do you perceive your responsibility towards the Earth? What inspires you to act sustainably? Reflect on how your ethical or even spiritual beliefs influence your decisions.

With a comprehensive understanding of the ecological, social, and economic contexts, you can make your operation more resilient, sustainable, and profitable. Contextual working ensures that your agricultural practices are optimally tailored to your specific conditions – for long-term successful farming.

• Nutrient management: Every plant has its specific nutrient requirements. For example, legumes fix nitrogen and optimally supply the next crop, such as cereals. This saves fertiliser and keeps the soil healthy.
• Pest and disease control: Crop rotation makes it possible. Pests and diseases lose their fixed location, and your use of plant protection products will be significantly reduced.
• Soil structure and erosion protection: With different root structures, you stabilise the soil and create protection against erosion.
• Promotion of biodiversity: Diversity in crop rotation brings a resilient system to the field.
• Risk management: By diversifying, you protect yourself and become less dependent on a single culture.

• Change of nutrient utilisation: After nitrogen-fixing plants (legumes), grow nitrogen-hungry plants, such as cereals.
• Different root depths: deep-rooted and shallow-rooted plants – this combination ensures a stable soil structure.
• Crop rotation: Different plant families prevent pests and diseases.
• Utilise cover crops: Create valuable organic matter and improve the soil.
• Residue mulch: Crops with plenty of residues provide your soil with long-term nourishment​.

• Grasses: Plants such as rye, oats, and meadow grass stabilise the soil, prevent erosion, and add organic matter. Their deep root systems loosen the soil and improve water retention.
• Legumes: Clover, lucerne and field beans fix nitrogen in the soil, reduce the need for fertilisers, and promote soil fertility.
• Crucifers: Mustard, rapeseed, and radish loosen the soil with their deep roots and act against pests and diseases. With their biofumigant effect, they reduce the use of pesticides.
• Asteraceae: Sunflowers and marigolds bring biodiversity and promote beneficial insects for pest control. At the same time, they contribute to the improvement of soil structure and soil health.

You can ideally sow these plant species as a mix to specifically combine the positive effects. A balanced mixture brings diversity to the soil and avoids one-sided effects, such as those that can occur with too many legumes. Depending on your goal – whether to alleviate soil compaction, build humus, or fix nutrients – the mixture can be adjusted. This way, you can enhance soil quality in the long term and ensure stable yields.

• Planning: Seamlessly integrate cover crops into the crop rotation plan.​
• Use suitable sowing methods: Choose what fits best – broadcasting, sowing, or undersowing​.
• Growth in focus: Mowing, grazing or rolling – your method to control development.
• Termination: Completion by rolling, crimping, or targeted herbicides before the next crop begins.

Cover crops are all-rounders for your soil.

Cover crops are true soil protectors. They improve soil structure, retain water, suppress weeds, and boost biodiversity. In short: the secret weapon for your soil health!

A well-thought-out crop rotation and targeted cover crops make your farm more resilient, productive, and sustainably successful. Use soil tests, yield data, and expert advice, and above all, seek exchange with like-minded individuals to continuously improve your methods and secure the best soil quality in the long term.

Every decision in management has consequences. By observing these, you can respond flexibly and adjust measures to promote positive outcomes.

Adaptive management practices are crucial for maintaining and improving soil health in today's dynamic agriculture. These practices promote a proactive, flexible approach to land management that enables you to respond effectively to changing conditions and continuously optimise your systems. A central component of this management is adaptive management, which is based on continuous observation and gives you the flexibility to adjust actions according to the observed results. This approach acknowledges that every decision triggers a range of impacts - both positive and negative - that require careful monitoring and targeted adjustments to ensure optimal soil health.

• Observation: Regular monitoring of your soil health, plant performance, pest populations, and weather conditions is crucial. With tools such as soil analyses, plant tissue examinations, and remote sensing, you obtain valuable data.
• Feedback loop: By incorporating your observations into your decisions, you create a feedback loop. This allows you to assess what works well and what doesn't, and to make informed adjustments.
• Flexibility: Adaptive management requires flexibility to adjust your practices as needed. This could mean changing the crop rotation, shifting planting dates, varying grazing patterns, or choosing different cover crop species.
• Learning and Innovation: Continuous learning and staying updated with new research and technologies are crucial. You can be innovative by trying out new practices and techniques and sharing your knowledge within the agricultural community.

Support diverse ecosystems instead of monocultures to increase resilience and productivity.

The promotion of biodiversity is a cornerstone of regenerative agriculture. Diverse ecosystems are more resilient and productive than monocultures and offer numerous benefits for soil health and the overall sustainability of your farm. These include the following aspects:

• Plant diversity: Diverse crop rotations and cover crops improve soil structure, nutrient cycling, and pest management. Each plant species contributes to supporting a diverse microbial community through different root exudates and organic substances.
• Microbial diversity: A diverse microbial community promotes nutrient availability, disease suppression, and soil structure. Measures to support microbial diversity include reduced tillage, organic amendments, and a variety of plant species.
• Insect and Wildlife Diversity: Diverse plantings attract beneficial insects, birds, and other wildlife that contribute to pest control, pollination, and ecological balance. Habitat strips, flowering cover crops, and hedgerows can support these populations.
• Resilience to stress: Diverse systems are better able to cope with environmental stresses such as drought, flooding, and pest infestations. Diversity reduces the risk of total crop failure and enhances the overall resilience of the operation.

By introducing planned disturbances, you can avoid stagnation and strengthen the adaptability and resilience of your soil and plant systems.

Planned disturbances in your agricultural systems can be the key to avoiding stagnation and promoting the adaptability and resilience of your fields. These targeted interventions mimic natural processes and stimulate soil and plant systems, allowing them to adapt to changing conditions and thrive optimally..

• Pasture management: Through rotational grazing or adaptive mob grazing, periodic disturbances are created that mimic the natural movements of herds. This prevents overgrazing, gives plants time to recover, and promotes root growth, thereby enhancing aggregation and soil biology.​
• Cover crops and crop rotation: When cover crops are regularly alternated and a crop rotation is maintained, the accumulation of pests and diseases is avoided, weed cycles are interrupted, and soil health is actively improved. Each new plant brings its own root systems and organic matter, strengthening the entire system.
• Alternatives to soil cultivation: Even when soil cultivation is reduced to a minimum, occasional targeted soil cultivation can be useful to relieve compaction or incorporate organic material. Such planned interventions can restore soil structure when applied carefully.

With these planned, targeted measures, you actively support the health and resilience of your soils.

• Measuring and Monitoring: Use regular soil tests and observation of plant performance to see how your soil practices affect profitability.
• Cost-benefit analysis: Compare input costs and yield increases to clearly assess the economic success of measures such as cover crops or reduced tillage.
• Calculate the return on investment (ROI) for measures such as cover crops and no-till practices.

• Direct savings on fertilisers and pesticides.
• Up to 60% less diesel consumption through reduced soil cultivation.
• Eincreased profitability and photosynthesis performance through soil health, which promotes active soil life, plant growth, and sustainable yields.