Dr. Rainer Bächi: The organic movement was his life

Dr. Rainer Bächi (picture), founder and director of the Institute for Marketecology, died while on a business trip in Georgia. His life ended unexpectedly in a tragic car accident in the early hours of June 10, 2010.

Rainer Bächi was born in Zürich on 31 July, 1948. He and his two brothers grew up in an anthroposophical home where he soon came into contact with arts, with nature and matters concerning health. When he was in the lower classes of the Rudolf Steiner School in Zürich, he already knew that he wanted to become a teacher and this was the profession he learned first. During his school years, he went to America as an exchange student and was deeply impressed by the uncultivated areas of land he saw there. The decision to become a farmer and to cultivate and use the land in a natural manner had its roots here. In 1974, he graduated in agricultural sciences at the ETH Zürich (The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). The following two years were spent working together with his wife on the Dottenfelderhof, one of the first biodynamic farms in Germany. Due to the exorbitant price of land and the lack of tenancies, he was unable to fulfil his wish of running his own farm and thus turned his attention to the retail sector and managed the health food shop “Vier Linden” in Zürich for 3 years.

However, the fascination of biodynamic agriculture was to captivate him for the rest of his life. He began his doctoral studies in Rudolf Steiner’s ashing method in order to get scientific acknowledgement of this method. On the successful completion of his doctorate in 1985, he had carried out not only uncountable numbers of experiments in the laboratory but also of outside tests, and was in contact with all leading European experts in biodynamic agriculture. From 1985 to 1990, Rainer Bächi was director of the VSBLO, the forerunner of today’s Bio
Suisse. At the same time, he acted as secretary of the Demeter Trademark Commission and of the Biodynamic Consumer Association in Switzerland. Those years saw the start of the boom in organic farming. Something innovative was developing at all levels and this was exactly the right environment for Rainer Bächi; his power of leadership and commitment to his ideas developed and left their stamp on the organic movement in numerous ways.

To mention just a few:

Foundation of the cooperatives for the debt-relief of farms
Advancement of collaboration between producers, traders and consumers
New marketing initiatives for Demeter-quality meat and milk protection of the Demeter trademark
Advancement of research and guidance in organic agriculture Organisation of international conferences Foundation and organisation of the first Swiss Organic Trade Fair (ERDA)

In 1989, Rainer Bächi founded the non-profit “Bio-Foundation” to advance eco-friendly products and an alternative form of consumer behaviour. It was his vision to build a bridge between the languages and cultures of the simple farmers in developing countries and the demands of the consumers in the highly technical ones. A better understanding on both sides was what he wanted to achieve. The Institute for Marketecology (IMO), of which Rainer Bächi was director until his death, began as a department of this foundation. Now an international group of companies with 30 subsidiaries, the IMO will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year. More than 350 associates support projects in over 90 different countries. From its beginnings, the IMO focused on the control and certification of organic produce. Without the foresight and drive of Rainer Bächi, IMO would not be the leading service provider in its field that it is today, nor would it be recognized worldwide as a highly qualified, independent certification body.

Rainer Bächi was a highly creative thinker whose approach to finding solutions to challenges was always unusual. With the founding of the IMO group in 2006, in which he brought together the different IMO companies worldwide in a holding, he created a corporate form, innovative not only in a business but also in a social sense. His aim was to embrace the manifold cultural influences and peculiarities of the individual offices but at the same time to guarantee a uniform quality standard worldwide. The individual and his or her personal
responsibility was always most important to Rainer Bächi. This conviction was reflected in the way he trusted his staff, whatever our age, religion or social background, and in the way he encouraged all to make an individual contribution to the organic movement. Rainer Bächi observed the increasing red tape attached to organic agriculture critically and he persistently questioned developments that were in conflict with his ideals. A man like Rainer Bächi never allowed himself to be restricted by practical constraints or the everincreasing lists of rules and regulations of the world of certification; with innovative ideas, he was always a step ahead of the sluggish bureaucracy. With the passing away of Rainer Bächi, IMO loses not only a charismatic pioneer of the organic
movement but also a teacher, visionary thinker and business leader who had always shown the road ahead. IMO hopes that with the support of clients and business partners, they will succeed in furthering his life-work and give it the direction he would have wished for.

IMO