Pinehedge Farms goes back to a small town in Austria in 1972. That year Anton Heinzle Sr. decided to start biodynamic farming. After successfully farming this way for 10 years, he decided to fulfill his lifelong dream of emigrating to Canada with his family.
Upon settling in St. Eugene in 1982, he continued using biodynamic methods and became Demeter certified in 1987.
His son, Josef, graduated from agricultural College in 1988 and gradually took over the business; starting production on Ontario’s first on-farm processing plant in August 1994.
The biodynamic farming is the first of the methods known as “organic”. So all good agronomic practices common with organic farming are an integral part of the method, as the care taken in the development of composts, long rotations, cultivation of veggies and deep rooting plants, moderate tillage and mechanical weeding.