Our agricultural firm uses all the possibilities to cultivate cultures and to keep animals whose products can be manufactured in the farm’s own operations and thus make a contribution to self-sufficiency. The range of operations is thus correspondingly versatile:
Keeping of dairy cattle
The milk acquired is processed in the estate’s own dairy. The raw feed comes solely from the estate’s own production. The young animals spend an enjoyable summer on the estate’s own alp in Toggenburg.
Pig keeping
Up to 180 animals live in our pig feed stables which are deemed as particularly animal-friendly. The overwhelming majority of the food comes from the estate’s own firm: waste products from the dairy and sweetcorn.
Fruit
We produce table apples, cider fruit for our own sweet cider on some 100 ares and fruit for making our own brandies: Graventsteiner, quinces, plums, damsons, yellow plums and cherries.
Hops
Hops are grown on around two hectares, which helps give the Ittingen Klosterbräu its peerless aroma.
Agriculture
Around 30 hectares are farmed in a regular harvesting sequence: Winter wheat, rape, sugar beet, silo and granular corn, sunflowers, spelt and artificial meadow to regenerate the soils. A substantial part of 20 tonnes of the wheat and spelt is used in baking in the Charterhouse's own facilities. Corn and grass remain on the farm to feed the animals. Rapeseed and sunflower oil are filled on site as cold-pressed oils.
Meadows and pastures
Around 30 hectares are permanent meadows and pastures, whereby the pasture area accounts for a substantial part: The cows are pastured every day for approx. 8 months of the year.
Forest
Our agricultural establishment looks after around 20 hectares of wood, FA-certified, for particularly careful and sustainable farming. On another 14 hectares of forest, the first reserve was set up in the canton. Any intervention here is prohibited. Part of the saw wood is used in our carpentry facilities; the fire wood is processed and sold by our residential home and workshop, in the coal kiln to high-grade charcoal or used for heating purposes in the Charterhouse's own chip firing.
