At DIS, we have two travel weeks with our core class. They are designed to be traveling field trips to places that are relevant to the topic of your course. The first one was this past week and my core course is Sustainable Food Production and Consumption so we traveled to different cities within Denmark to look into different agricultural practices and evaluate their sustainability.
On Monday morning I met my class at 7:30am to board our bus and begin our journey. We began by driving an hour and a half to Farendløse Mosteri, which is a regenerative farm. Regenerative farming is a specific practice which intends to increase carbon
storage, ensure balance in the nutrient cycles and increase biodiversity on the cultivated areas. It relies heavily on the ecosystem to do its job in order to produce crops instead of using a lot of machinery and unnatural interventions and substances. They care about soil health because it affects the quality of the crops they produce (including the nutritional content!)
We were given a tour by one of the part-owners of the farm and she told us about the history of the land, their current practices, and some of their struggles. One of their challenges is that a significant part of their land is an apple orchard, but they are not in a good geographical area to be growing apples. They are at a low elevation where cold air comes in and it often wipes out a section of their apples from the frost.
They sell their produce to some local restaurants and some individuals. She lives with her boyfriend and child on this farm with about 10 others. They also have a greenhouse where they specialize in dry farming tomatoes. Dry farming is a technique where you plant the tomatoes in high-quality composted soil with the water it needs for the first few weeks, and then withhold irrigation completely. Tomatoes are very aggressive plants that have the capability to develop very, very long root systems and grow very tall. When you withhold water, they grow their roots faster and longer because they search for water within the soil, rather than relying on surface-level irrigation. They are able to get all of the water and nutrients they need from within healthy soil, which means that they grow stronger without needing any water. This is a very sustainable practice that is great for limiting water waste.
It was very, very cold standing in the fields of this farm and a little bit boring since there were no crops currently growing (since it is winter.) We were very happy to go inside and finish the tour in their meeting space. She ended up bringing us a carton of their apple juice that they make from the apples they grow on the farm. It was absolutely amazing and the freshest and best tasting apple juice I have ever had.
As we were drinking and warming up, she told us about the Regenerative Agriculture School that they have on their property, which they started as an alternative to traditional farming school. As we were leaving we met this cat.
Then we hopped back into the bus and started on a 3.5 hour journey to Sophienlund, a pig farm. We stopped at a gas station along the way to grab some food for lunch.
Sophienlund is a modern farm, with the production of 960 sows
with the sale of 30 kg pigs. Sophielund is part of Danish Crown. In addition to the daily work in the stables, they operate 600 hectares of traditional plant breeding, where they grow grain, seeds, sugar beets and rapeseed for feed. When we arrived, we had to put on plastic suits over our clothes. This was to protect the pigs from any diseases we were carrying, and vice versa. We were also told before arriving that any clothes we wore to the pig farm would smell terrible and not be wearable until they were washed. (This was very, very true.)
When we went inside the smell was absolutely terrible. I spent every summer for 9 years on a farm in Missouri and this was a completely different smell from a typical barn. I think it was because usually barns smell like hay but these pigs were being fed mush and sitting in their poop. We walked through hallways that looked like they were from a horror film.
Having been vegan for 8 years and an advocate for animal welfare, I knew exactly what we were going to be seeing. But many of my classmates did not know that conventional pig farms weren’t where happy pigs roamed fields and played in mud.
The first room we went into was where the pigs were impregnated. Each pig was in a slot only a little bit bigger than their bodies, so they were not able to do anything except stand, eat, and lay down. They were not even able to turn around in their stalls. They were kept in these rooms for weeks before being moved to the next room.
The next room they were moved to was only slightly better. They had the same stalls for eating but they were able to back out of them into a larger shared space. This space was insanely overpopulated by pigs, and fights frequently break out between them. They had visible scratches and injuries from each other and their poor living conditions. The animals had numbers spray painted onto their backs for what week of pregnancy they were in. They were slipping on their own poop and the man giving us a tour confirmed that they never go outside.
Next we went to a nursery room where new moms were with their babies. In nature mother pigs wean their piglets between 10 and 17 weeks old. On conventional factory farms, piglets are removed from their mothers at three weeks old. This separation is highly distressing for both the mother pig and her piglets. The moms were also kept completely restrained in between metal bars for the entirety of her time with her babies. The owner said this was to keep her from being able to lay down on top of any of the babies which could kill them. But these bars keep her completely immobile for 3 WEEKS and they were all biting the bars trying to get out of them. Some of the moms had irritation on their shoulders from the bars, so they attached black rubber bumpers to them to prevent a wound that could get infected.
Lastly, we went to a room where the weaned babies were kept. Each room had hundreds of baby pigs that were all running around each other. It was the least problematic of the rooms we visited, but they were all so afraid of us when we walked in that it made it even more clear how mistreated they were. They all ran to the back of their stalls when we got close.
While we were in this room, my classmates began asking questions about the emissions from his farm, and how he thinks he compares to an organic farm. He seemed somewhat triggered by this question and said that emissions from conventional farms are actually less than at an organic farm because his animals are indoors. When we asked follow up questions his whole argument seemed to disintegrate and it was clear that he had nothing to back up that statement. He also said that he does not see any issues with how the pigs are raised in his facilities.
Lastly we went outside to look at the tractors they have for their vegetable farms. They were massive and he said they each cost 2 million DKK or about $300,000 USD.
We left Sophielund and boarded the bus to drive to Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark. We arrived at the hotel (smelling absolutely terrible) and were assigned our rooms. They went in alphabetical order for room assignments to my roommate was a girl named Tess. Everyone showered off the pig smell, rested for a little bit, and then headed to dinner at L’estragon, a fine dining restaurant that serves 90-100% organic and locally produced food.
The entire restaurant was not very big, and it could only fit the exact amount of people we had. The tables were all reconfigured to be one long table that went diagonally across the restaurant in order to fit everyone.
DIS paid for dinner and we did a 3 course meal with a glass of wine. The first course was celeriac root puree with capers and parsley, the second course was a fried potato with mushroom sauce, sweet potato strips and kale, and the third was a dessert course with almond milk ice cream in a hard chocolate shell and an orange pound cake muffin.
It was all vegan and really delicious. My favorite was definitely the second course with the mushroom sauce over the fried potato. The dinner was verrrry slow, with each course taking about an hour to make. But it was a great excuse to get to know some people in our class. Tess and I sat across from our teacher, Camilla, and three guys in our class who all go to Lehigh and came to DIS together.
After dinner, we all decided to go the Old Irish Pub which was a few doors down from our hotel. We all convinced Camilla and Morton, the two teachers with us on this trip, to come with us.
It was definitely an odd experience drinking with teachers, and kind of a culture shock. It was also a great way to get to know the rest of the people in my class and see people out of the context of our classroom. We hung out for about an hour, and then people started heading back to the hotel. The three guy who we sat with at dinner decided to go to a casino at a different hotel across the street, and Tess and I decided to go with them.
We had to pay $10 cover to get in, had our coats checked, and went through a whole process just to get in. The guys we were with all started gambling so we were just hanging out and watching them lose their money. The monday night casino croud was definitely interesting, and after a while they were out of money so we left and went to the 7/11 down the street. Tess and I rediscovered how amazing Pringles are, and I swear they are 10x better in Europe.
The next morning we woke up and went to our hotel breakfast. When walking around we noticed that the stop lights had little vikings instead of people. Then we loaded back into the bus and headed to Den Gamle By (The Old Town) which is a national open-air museum of urban history and culture in Denmark through three centuries.
The museum consists of more than 75 historic houses relocated
from all over Denmark. When they find a house that they want to be part of the museum, they send a crew to photograph every part of the house, deconstruct the house piece by piece, transport the pieces, and then rebuild it on their property exactly how it was. It was interesting to see what 18th century Danish homes looked like, and walk through history into modern day times.
The second half of the museum was an indoor exhibit where you take an elevator downstairs. The elevator was made to be like a time machine and a video plays as you’re going down and it opens to viking times.
Once again like walking through time, we learned about all aspects of Danish history and culture, like music, sports, and activism.
We stopped at a cafe in the museum for a quick eat. I got a vegetarian smørrebrød that was really good.
Then we got back onto the bus and drove onto a ferry. I knew that the bus was going to go on the ferry so it was a large boat, but this was so much bigger than I had imagined. It really resembled a cruise boat because it had so many cars and busses on it and it had a food court upstairs. We all got much-needed coffee and enjoyed the 1.5 hour trip. We were also able to go outside on the back of the ship and enjoy the view.
Denmark is partially made up of a number of different islands. Copenhagen is actually in the eastern end of Zealand. On this ferry, we were traveling from Aarhus, in Jutland, to Odense in Zealand.
When we were arriving, we got back on the bus and drove off of the ferry. On the bus, Camilla gave us all plant-based and organic chocolate treats and told us about the sustainability issues of cocoa production.
Our next stop was Birkemosegård, a biodynamic farm. Jesper’s family has owned this farm for four generations. The farm is located right up against the ocean so it was an amazing view. We started the tour in the kitchen where they cook and serve some of their food.
Jesper started by giving us an overview of the farm and how his father made the decision to convert it to a biodynamic farm. Biodynamic plants are grown in the ground in living soil, which provides a quality of health and nutrition not possible with chemical fertilizers. Biodynamic farms aspire to generate their own fertility through composting, integrating animals, cover cropping, and crop rotation. This is different from organic because it does not allow for any organic pesticides and fertilizers. I also learned that organic farms are allowed to use manure from non-organic farms on their fields which was shocking to me.
One quote that he used that really struck me was “my goal is to leave a better soil for the next generation than the soil i got from my fathers generation.” I had never considered the soil quality of my produce before this visit.
He also talked to us about PFAS and how they are contaminating our water, food, air, and soil. I had never heard of this term before so it was shocking to me that it is a problem on a global scale. PFAS are present in almost every food and water system, but in high doses it can be really harmful to human and animal health. It is also a huge issue because once it is present in soil, it will never leave.
This was relevant to this visit because Jesper said that PFAS are present in the ocean and very likely blowing up onto his farmland. He said that he has done a lot of research on the subject and is completely unwilling to grow anything on his ocean-front land even though the government has not told him not to. Being a local producer, he feels a heightened obligation to produce the best produce and can’t morally accept putting his customers in possible danger. This means that a significant amount of his land is unusable, and he can’t let his cows graze that area because it could infect them and anyone who eats their meat.
He talked about how he wants the government to take action and start testing across Denmark to determine where the problem areas really are. His personal guess is that building ocean-front homes would be effective at blocking the PFAS from blowing onto the fields, but he needs the government to do that testing.
We then walked out to see the animals that he had. We saw so many cows and even a baby cow that was 3 hours old. There was a huge difference in living conditions for his animals compared to the pigs we saw the day before. These animals were inside because it was cold, but they had open access to fields where they could graze.
While any animal agriculture is not something that I support, this was a much better situation that the pigs were in. Jesper talked about how the cows were slaughtered. He said that 15 years ago he was doing it himself on his own farm because he knew that the best scenario was to keep them home the whole time, and not put them through the stress of transport. But the government then decided that they did not want farms to do this because they wanted to be able to monitor the process. So he was forced to have to put them in the trailer and bring them to the local butcher, but he chose to do this because they had positive associations with the trailer since that is how they transport them to other fields.
While I still don’t agree with the industry, it was clear that Jester cared a lot about giving his animals the best life that he could. When we were leaving the farm, we had a beautiful view of the sunset.
For dinner we went to Det Vilde Køkken, translated to, the wild kitchen, is a restaurant owned by the forager, Jørgen Stolz. He usually arranges foraging trips in the area all year round and cooks with herbs, roots, and what producers of the area have to offer. We had the restaurant rented out for my class and another DIS class focusing on climate change. We started with an introduction by Jørgen about the history of Denmark’s landscape.
Then it was time for dinner and it was a beautiful buffet-style spread of all vegan food. It was all delicious and we were all so glad to have massive servings compared to the fine dining restaurant the night before.
Our bus driver and the other class’s bus driver sitting together for dinner 🙂
After dinner we drove to the hotel, where a pile of keys were waiting for us. It was pointless to assign rooms at that point to they said to choose where we all want to stay and we all went to our rooms. Tess, Ale, Anna and I went to our room and it was a 6 person room for the 4 of us. It was 2 bunk beds and 2 single beds so we were all able to sleep on the bottom beds. It was a really large room and the bathroom was an upgrade from our past hotel, and even from our bathrooms at our kollegiums. However, it was decorated…. oddly.
In our room, we were deciding whether or not we should take the 25 minute walk into the center of town to see what the nightlife was like. Our hotel was at the harbor so we were pretty removed from everything, and we had no idea what the scene would look like once we got there. We ended up getting two guys in our class, Izzy and Daniel, to come with us and we walked through parks and residential areas to the main city.
We found an Irish pub and found that it was pretty busy for a Tuesday night, so we sat down and got some drinks. About 5 minutes later, the three guys from out class who we had gone to the casino with the night before, walked in so we had a group of nine of us.
We got a huge booth and started playing a game, when three Danish guys at the booth next to us introduced themselves and said they wanted to join. They were probably 35 years old and told us about how two of them work in construction and one of them just got back from deployment. They gave us a history lesson about the tension between Denmark and Sweden and shared their perspectives on the sustainability issues in agriculture. I also got some Danish lessons, which I seem to do every time I meet Danish people at the bar.
When we left the bar, we headed to 7/11 and grabbed some snacks before walking the 25 minutes back to our hotel. When we woke up in the morning the area around us looked so different than it had at night, and we were able to see the boats and the water surrounding us.
Our first stop of the day was Svanholm Gods, an organic farm community. They are a social collective and organic farm situated on an old estate. There are 80 adults and 50 children living on the 570 acre estate, and they participate in a shared economy and consensus decision making. The farm has been certified organic since 1990, and they grow 50 different vegetables as well as milk and cheese.
When we arrived we were greeted by Paulina, a woman who lives and works on the farm. She gave us a brief introduction and told us she would be making us soup while we did our tour.
In order to live in the community, people have to buy into it with a deposit that is returned once they leave the community. They are also required to have a job when moving in, and they give 80% of their income to the farm which is used for farm upkeep as well as running of their free child care services and kindergarten, their kitchen and daily meals, community accountants and mechanics, etc. We were told that children are given a voice in the community as soon as they can speak.
It was a very community-based living situation that mostly benefits families because of the education and child care aspects. It also has a lot of open land and offers kids a connection to nature. Our guide said that kids often leave the farm as soon as they are able to move out, but often times come back when it’s time for them to raise their own kids because they realize it was a great upbringing.
We visited the cows they have for dairy production and learned about how they sell a lot of it to local businesses such as the ice cream shop down the street. Their cows are 75% grass fed and have open field access in the warmer months.
Then we headed inside for a homemade bowl of lentil soup with homemade rye bread and butter. It was delicious and much needed after spending 2 hours walking around in the cold.
Our next stop was Andelsgårde Melby, an organic and community-supported farm. When we arrived we entered a glass building that was newly constructed to act as a meeting space. We enjoyed cups of coffee and sat in the sun-warmed space while hearing from Christopher, one of the owners, about how the farm runs. Christopher and his girlfriend Nanna run the farm together. Young farmers in Denmark are given money by the government as a way to incentivize young people to start farms and enter the agriculture field.
This farm was actually not owned by this couple, but by an association where members pay $20/month to support locally grown and organic farming. My teacher is actually one of the members of this organization. Farms that are part of this member-based organizational system get financial support which allows them to afford tools that they may not have been able to otherwise. Some farms that are part of this have a system where members pay dues and receive a monthly box of fresh produce from the farm.
Then we went out to see their fields and saw that they were carefully planted so that each bed was specifically designed to be the exact width that fits between a human stance, since they hand pick their crops instead of using machinery.
They have a dog who gets to run freely through the fields and she brought us her toy to play tug of war. We also walked through their greenhouse and saw some vegetables they were growing. As we were leaving we saw purple and green kale growing.
We got back in the bus and drove back to Copenhagen which took about an hour and a half.
I got home, took a much-needed shower to wash off all of the farms, and made some dinner. The next morning my class met at a 9am at Lille Bakery, small bakery and eatery located in Refshaleøen in Copenhagen. Unfortunately, I was 30 minutes late because I made so many mistakes using the public transportation to get there since it was in a remote area I hadn’t been to yet. I have gotten really good at taking the different metro lines, but I have only had to take the bus a few times and I always seem to get on the one going the opposite direction. Luckily I really didn’t miss anything because my class started by eating buns with cheese (a very typically Danish breakfast) and there was one left for me when I arrived.
Lille Bakery was started in 2018 as a community space that provides fresh bread, baked goods, and food created with fresh and local ingredients. They try to work with farmers, fishermen and other craftsmen who share the belief that good quality ingredients should be for everyone. Producers who also understand the importance of an organic and local agriculture, that is both fair and works in harmony with the environment. The space had a bottom floor that was divided between kitchen (featuring a quite large oven for their bread-making) and the front seating area. Upstairs was a loft that only covered the back half of the shop. It was full of tables for people to gather and do work.
Our class sat upstairs and heard from the owner about how the business started and where they hope to go from here. She told us about what it is like to operate a kitchen that is so focused on using only local ingredients, such as how they have to decide on the menu at the start of the day depending on what produce the farmers are able to get to them. This is really different form other restaurants who get their produce from mainstream farmers and larger producers who have a more consistent yield.
We also heard more about why it is difficult for farmers to go to farmers markets, which was consistent with what each farmer had told us during our trip. This is because in order to participate in the farmers market they spend all day on Saturday preparing and harvesting their crops, then they wake up early on Sunday to load their trucks and drive to the market, spend all day trying to sell, and then they return home with usually a significant amount of produce left and they rarely make enough profit to offset the amount of time and labor that went into the process. They also added that they have to consider that all day on Sunday was spent selling less than they would have selling directly to restaurants and a full day was taken away from other work they could have gotten done.
When we finished at the bakery, we walked around the corner to a Bygaard, a local urban mushroom producer. Urban crop production is a popular topic right now as people are trying to figure out ways to sustainably produce crops in urban settings without using huge amounts of land.
Vertical farming is the idea of growing crops on top of each other indoors in order to utilize more growing space than can be used in a field. It typically looks like this:
The place we went to though was quite different than traditional vertical farming because they were growing mushrooms. Mushrooms need a different growing environment than leafy greens and other typical vegetables. Bygaard actually grows their mushrooms in bags filled with byproducts like sawdust, organically certified straw and other agricultural residual materials that are pasteurized to kill other fungi and bacteria. It takes about 1-3 weeks to produce mushrooms and they are able to sell 400 pounds of mushrooms every single day.
When we walked into the building it felt like a huge storage facility with individual storage units with their garage-door style doors closed. When the owner opened the garage door, he revealed rows and rows of bagged mushrooms that were growing. Each room was kept at the optimal temperature for growth that actually served to slow them down because mushrooms typically grow very, very quickly.
Once the mushrooms are ready to be removed from their bags, they are carefully removed, cleaned off, and sorted into boxes by their type. They have a team of delivery people who pick up the boxes of mushrooms and deliver them to the doorsteps of restaurants and personal consumers by bicycle. They can do this because they produce for their local nearby community and they are committed to decreasing emissions.
My teacher ended up buying a large case of mushrooms and cooked them on a camping hot plate in our classroom the next day so we could all eat some.
The mushroom farm was our class’s last stop for the day so we were free to explore the area and head home. My friend and I went to a small cafe down the street that was right on the water. It was very small with only about 5 tables, and they sold coffee, pastries, sandwiches and bottles of natural wine.
We sat down and grabbed a coffee and pastries. I asked the employees for their favorite and got a seasonal pasty that was filled with whipped cream and berries.
On Friday my class met at the Danish Agriculture and Food Council (Landbrug og Fødevare.) We sat down in a conference room and heard about how decision making and lobbying works for agricultural practices. One thing that was interesting was that in Denmark there is only one organization that oversees food, drink, meat, seafood, dairy, crop, and all other food-related production. This means that everything is being regulated by the same organization rather than having so many different regulators like we do in America. We also learned about the history of agriculture in Denmark, such as how over time there has been a huge transition from having a huge amount of small farms across the nation, to having huge farms but only very small amount of them.
Then we walked back to our classroom and ate the mushrooms that my teacher had bought the day before at the mushroom farm. Then we broke into our designated groups to make a presentation about specific places we went to during our trip. My group was assigned day 3 so we talked about the living community organic dairy farm and the organic farm ran by the couple and their dog. We had three hours to create the presentation and get lunch, so my group worked at a coffee shop. Then we all regrouped back at the classroom and gave our presentations to wrap up our core course week.
Overall it was a very long week filled with a lotttt of farms. While it was kind of difficult to spend so much time outside in the cold and see empty farm land in the winter, I do think we learned a lot from each stop we made. I also think it was really cool to go to Jutland, the mainland of Denmark, since Copenhagen is on the island of Zealand. I also think that learning so much about the agriculture of Denmark is important because 60% of Denmark is covered in farmland. It is easy to spend all of your time in the cities and forget about the rural areas.
Stay tuned for a post about my weekend trip to Stockholm!
