Germans consume around nine million cubic metres of peat a year, and most of them don’t know it. Peat is an ideal substrate for growing vegetables and ornamental plants. The drawback: peat mining is detrimental to the environment and the climate. Only five per cent of the natural moorland in Germany is intact, above all due to drainage for agriculture. Scientists at the University of Greifswald have developed a method of cultivating moss in Germany as an alternative to peat. If farmers grow peat moss, degraded upland moors can be used sustainably and continual sources of income opened up.