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Modern nutrition is more likely to make people sick.
In order to live healthier lives, agriculture and the food industry must change.
Entrepreneur Michael Horsch can well imagine an agriculture that almost completely dispenses with biological fungicides and herbicides.
In 1984 he founded the Horsch Maschinen GmbH company with his brother Walter.
Today Horsch is one of the world's leading manufacturers of agricultural machinery with its headquarters in Schwandorf, Bavaria.
More than 1,600 employees generate sales of more than 400 million euros annually.
Horsch has also changed the diet of its employees.
WORLD:
Mr. Horsch, when was the last time you ate pork knuckle?
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Michael Horsch:
I am not a lover of knuckles.
I don't want to eat where someone has walked on it.
It's like my tongue, I can't eat that either.
But I like schnitzel.
WORLD:
When was that last?
Horsch:
That was in Austria, about half a year ago.
Whenever there is a very good schnitzel, I eat it.
Better from the calf.
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WORLD:
Why I ask: In older photos you don't look as slim as you do today.
Have you experienced a personal diet change?
Horsch:
Yes.
In other words, it was an attitude change.
Entrepreneur Michael Horsch is co-founder of the agricultural machinery manufacturer of the same name in Schwandorf, Bavaria
Source: HORSCH Maschinen GmbH
WORLD:
What was this turning point?
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Horsch:
For a long time I believed that we could only feed the ten billion people in the world if we continue to farm more intensively, produce even more, use even more genetic engineering ...
WORLD:
... what agricultural associations, many farmers and CDU agricultural politicians said ...
Horsch:
... a few large corporations still have this on their agenda today.
But they didn't understand that they actually belonged to the past.
WORLD:
Do you mean Nestlé?
Horsch:
They, and even my dear colleagues from the agricultural machinery industry.
They say: It is just needed more and more.
WORLD:
Isn't it true?
Horsch:
Until five or six years ago, I was of the same opinion.
I said: My topic is agricultural machinery, increasing intensity and yields.
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WORLD:
And then?
Horsch:
At some point you come to the realization that something has actually gone wrong with your own diet.
How can one judge so clearly about world food!
Well, I'm a food junkie.
If you put a Black Forest cake in front of me, I'll eat it and as much as it says on the table.
WORLD:
That was old Mr. Horsch, the cake junkie?
Or are you still like that?
Horsch:
You still feel lust sometimes.
But then came my sister, who lives in the USA and is involved in the eco and health scene there.
Her husband had severe pain in his limbs.
Vegan diets have helped them and they have identified good scientific reasons.
Two years after his diet change, I saw him again: as if he had fallen into the fountain of youth!
WORLD:
Because he avoids meat?
Horsch:
No, not only.
Any form of extreme oversupply of individual foods is harmful, be it meat, sugar, oils or whatever.
Even extracted oils are processed food again when they are detached from the nut or oil fruit.
WORLD:
So is it about raw food diets?
Horsch:
No, it was about scientifically understanding why we malnourish ourselves.
This includes the delusional belief that meat consumption has made us intelligent.
Nonsense!
Everything that you eat in excess creates degradation products that the body can no longer get rid of at some point.
My brother is 45 pounds, I only 20 pounds.
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WORLD:
Was the change difficult?
Horsch:
No.
Only the taste needs some time to change.
Only when you drink the coffee ten times without sugar will it taste good. Then you won't want it any other way.
WORLD:
Just like we used to get used to beer and cigarettes.
Horsch:
Exactly.
WORLD:
There is now more salad and less meat in your canteen.
Horsch:
Yes, and the employees who participated and lost weight were presented as heroes of the month.
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WORLD:
With before and after photos?
Horsch:
Yes.
WORLD:
Because you don't want to make people sick?
Horsch:
Yes.
What is now called modern nutrition makes people sick rather than healthy.
This is a core problem in our society.
Kamela Harris, the Vice President of the USA, wants to reduce the consumption of meat and sugar in a targeted manner.
Because the health system can no longer bear that.
WORLD:
The problem is much more dramatic in the USA ...
Horsch:
... but haven't we done the same?
Are you still producing more and cheaper?
WORLD:
Did German agricultural policy hear the shot?
Horsch:
Yes.
But the question is: do you want to hear that?
WORLD:
Do you hear the Union's agricultural politicians say “we produce too much meat”?
Can that be said for them?
Horsch:
Look, I'm really not the first to have made this his program.
Many, many, many move on the path.
That goes as far as CEOs of well-run corporations.
Where does the classic Rockefeller still sit today, with a cigar, whiskey and a fat belly?
Why have companies like Wiesenhof been dealing with vegan meat substitutes for years?
Because they no longer believe in their old business model.
WORLD:
And the agricultural politicians of the CDU?
Horsch:
They are afraid that the farmers will get all this down the wrong way, and that's why they say: Nothing will change.
WORLD:
Then there is the dramatic death of insects ...
Horsch:
... Wait, I want to say something else: We are discussing these topics on a completely wrong platform.
People say: we need less chemicals and fertilizers and then everything will be fine.
We need "organic farming".
No!
It's about a different question: what will we eat in the future?
WORLD:
The ideologization is the problem?
Horsch:
We have to recognize that diet is a personal choice.
If only ten percent of the population eat organic, then I can't force it!
But politicians can set up guard rails and say: flavor enhancers, junk food and so on - up to here and no further.
Junk food - that's junk food.
You have to say somewhere that this is simply forbidden.
You can't put something like that into circulation anymore.
And this direction is also something that the EU's Green Deal basically envisages.
WORLD:
And what does that help our insects?
Horsch:
The agricultural turnaround, which will come one way or another, will automatically increase again - maybe even strong.
WORLD:
Do the fields have to be smaller again?
Horsch:
We're not going back to the horse, not going back to the rake and spade.
We are already opponents of nature just because we are there.
But we have to make more compromises with nature again and not work as one-sidedly as we have done in recent decades.
I wouldn't say we have to reduce the size of the fields again.
But it definitely makes sense to increase the diversity in the field.
WORLD:
How does it work?
Horsch:
Farmers are often more advanced than science.
I travel around the world a lot.
For several years there have been successful experiments to cultivate intermediate cultures after monocultures with such high biodiversity that the soil life regenerates - that the bacteria increase again, enzymes are formed, and so on.
And they bind carbon from the air, so the need for fertilizer from the sack is not that great.
And do you know where to get the furthest?
WORLD:
No.
Horsch:
In Brazil.
WORLD:
Oh, of all things?
Horsch:
Yes, they are the furthest!
Where we Germans and you journalists always know very well that everything is bad there, that the rainforest is being cut down there.
But it is precisely there that the arable farmers are furthest ahead of us in applied microbiology.
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WORLD:
Why?
Horsch:
Because they have been dealing with it the longest.
I can testify to the changes.
Entrepreneurial farmers there are driving ecological change!
There are companies that have switched almost completely to organic fungicides and herbicides.
You only dream of being a German journalist who wants to change the world.
WORLD:
Well, I've also traveled a lot around the world to observe agriculture.
Horsch:
Maybe, but you always have to come back to the places to see change!
There are no stupid people, not even in Brazil.
At most we are stupid in our little Germany when we look out into the world and think we can read everything.
Because we're arrogant, because we think we know everything better.
WORLD:
Well, you believe in the wisdom of free enterprise.
Horsch:
Yes.
We have quite a number of our children who want to join our company.
We told them: Do not believe that you will be successful if you continue on our path of the past.
Then we thought long and hard about how we would see the benefits of our company.
And we came up with this one sentence: We want to serve people to become healthier through nutrition
WORLD:
Will agricultural machinery change for this?
Horsch:
We are one of the largest crop protection sprayer manufacturers in Europe.
The things to bring poison ...
WORLD:
... you don't need that anymore!
Horsch:
No!
Do you know what they will be?
One of the most important tools.
And no longer to apply chemicals, but to apply bacterial and fungal cultures to the plant population if this is not replenished from the soil quickly enough.
With a traditional sprayer, not only can toxic crop protection be applied, but also bacteria and fungal cultures
Source: HORSCH Maschinen GmbH
WORLD:
Are the machines getting smaller?
Horsch:
Something.
But above all, they will become fully autonomous.
Tractors and cabs are becoming significantly fewer.
WORLD:
And why do you still need farmers?
Horsch:
The machines and computers are tools.
We will never be able to replace the farmer who not only has the knowledge but also a feeling for the soil and animals.
WORLD:
Why?
Horsch:
You are dealing with nature.
And nature has so many facets that you cannot capture every second with a sensor or camera and then make decisions that are better than what humans decide.
People no longer sit on the machine, but they still follow.
And there he sees the ground better than before.
WORLD:
Agriculture will not be replaced by corporations?
Horsch:
I have no worries at all.
A corporation can build a chicken coop.
But he does not look with the eye of the Lord.
WORLD:
You are not an academic.
Are you more successful because your intuition is intact?
Horsch:
Yes, or rather because I have a passion, because I remain interested.
That's why I've learned a lot more about nature and health than about technology.
WORLD:
Because they are unusually completely un-arrogant?
Horsch:
Do you think so?
WORLD:
Yes.
Arrogance is a trap door to real interest.
Horsch:
That's right.
Arrogance means wanting to be something bigger than you are, and then you are somewhere else.