Biodynamic Farm Paris Creek

Long before biodynamic wine and cheese were found together in the same sentence, Ulli and Helmut Spranz were building the foundations for their dairy farm, at Paris Creek, forty minutes drive from Adelaide, South Australia.

Biodynamic comes from bios – life, and dynamos – energy. If you see a food product like wine or cheese labelled biodynamic, then you know the food has been grown using methods that nourish not only the consumer but also the whole ecosystem in which it is found.

After emigrating from Germany in 1988, Ulli and Helmut travelled around Australia in a campervan for a year with their two children, Krischan five, and Siri, eight-months, looking for their dream farm.  They thought they had found it in a 170 acre dairy property complete with 40 cows, situated amid apparently green, fertile, undulating land with abundant water – idyllic for Australia’s notoriously driest state.

“We bought the farm in winter and by the time we moved in it was January and the height of summer,” Ulli remembers. “When Helmut and I walked around the parched paddocks, dust rising behind us, the cows lacklustre, the hay shed bare and irrigation system dismantled, I just cried. I couldn’t face it and begged Helmut to just take us home.”

The results from the soil test confirmed their worst fears – overuse had depleted vital minerals from the soil leaving it unable to support healthy pasture. Ulli and Helmut were determined to avoid using artificial fertilizers which offer a quick fix, but damage the soil. “We knew the only long-term solution was to use the biodynamic techniques we’d learned in Germany.  We could revive the soil, and thereby the pasture and the cows,” Ulli says.

Working day and night they started the regeneration process. “We made compost from the cow’s manure impregnated with the horn manure and horn silica compost preparations. Then we spread this over the land a section at a time,” Ulli remembers.

“We had little cash so I used my knowledge of wild edible plants taught to me by my parents, so that we could eat off the land while waiting for our vegetable garden to mature. We made tea from dandelion and other herbs.  I made cheese from the milk, and ground grain to make bread in the kitchen’s wood oven. We made jam from the berries and fruit collected from the trees growing on the property.”

Krischan and Siri attended the local Mt Barker Waldorf School, and when they brought home their friends, Ulli found herself inundated with requests for milk from the children’s mothers. “That’s the first cash I had in about three years,” Ulli says.

Then the neighbouring farmers started to comment on the Spranz’s high quality hay and healthy-looking cows and calves. “The preparations were working,” says Ulli. “The other farmers noticed and wanted to know what we were doing so we told them.” By now Ulli had managed to fit in birthing another three children, Merlin, now 19, Woike 17 and Ruben, 10, with the daily running and expansion of the farm.

The farmers asked Ulli and Helmut to teach them how to use the biodynamic preparations on their pastures. “As the farmers changed to biodynamic practices we were able to purchase their milk and expand our production to make cream, cheese, quark, yoghurt and butter,” says Ulli.

Soon Adelaide restaurants, such as the Hyatt, were making regular orders for the Paris Creek biodynamic produce. As demand increased Ulli and Helmut’s infrastructure grew, moving their cheese and yoghurt production to a custom-built factory, designed by their son Krischan and built on the property.

By 2001 major supermarkets such as Coles and Woolworths received their first pallet of Paris Creek produce and by 2002 the Spranz’s were supplying retail outlets interstate and overseas.

One of their soft cheeses is a quaintly named Com n’ Bear. The label has a picture of a polar bear cub and its mother.  “My youngest son Ruben saw the picture in a book we gave him. He was so taken with the bear cub emerging from his icy den, that he designed the label for us,” says proud mum Ulli.  “Then he suggested we name it ‘Com’n Bear’ as though the mother is calling to her cub.”

And the future?  “Part of the factory’s design includes a café/restaurant and now we’re just waiting for a chef, experienced in biodynamic food preparation, to join us. If you have a goal, and you’re not distracted by negativity, then you will achieve. That’s the way it’s always worked for us,” says Ulli.

“We’d like to open up the farm to other activities that involve helping others. Perhaps that’s the next stage?” One thing is clear: the Spranz’s know how to manifest their dreams. And those of us who like to savour the taste and quality of biodynamic cheese with our wine are very happy that they do.

Ulli & Helmut run regular workshops/meetings assisting people interested in Biodynamic Farming methods @ B.-d. Farm Paris Creek.