Peter Felser, June 28, 2024, Farm Policy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/179, pp. 23306-23307. 

Right honorable Frau President. Herr Minister. Ladies and gentlemen. Dear guests. 

With the massive elimination of half a billion euros per year for farm diesel, the Ampel unleashed the greatest farmers protests ever since the Peasants Wars of the 16^th Century in Germany. 

            Karmaba Diaby (SPD):  Mein Gott! 

Maximilian Mordhorst (FDP): I would say, since 2019! Yet each has his version of history!

Because you wanted to remove pressure, you promised the German agriculture: At latest by the summer pause, there shall be more planning security, there shall be more relief. You wanted to thereby compensate for the tax hike on farm diesel. 

Since then however, as good as nothing has happened. Quite the opposite: You meanwhile have burdened the agriculture with even more bureaucracy; for example, with the obligatory material flow balance [Stoffstrombilanz] for fertilizer. And then we need learn on Tuesday from the farm press that the Ampel has now put forward a so-called farm package. At lightning speed, this shall now be bludgeoned through the German Bundestag. In three days, on Monday, we shall hear the experts – if they come in at all. Two days later, it shall be in committee and then next Friday, presumably in the last minutes before the summer pause, it shall be decided. 

I truly ask myself: Have you then learned simply nothing from the chaos in regards the heating law? The Federal Constitutional Court expressly wrote to you in the album: You need to give parliament sufficient time so that we can thoroughly occupy ourselves with legal initiatives. Of that, there can be no talk here. Dear colleagues, allow me in this place to clearly emphasize: It thus definitely does not go. That is a trivialization of parliament. If you can’t do it professionally, then at least leave out these conjuring tricks. That is unheard of. 

And what is in the farm package – as opposed to what you now have spoken of? As expected, it falls completely short of the promises of January. You appear to have understood not at all the seriousness of the situation  in agriculture. Where is the reliable financing for animal husbandry? Where are the measures for affordable land prices? Where are the measures for affordable working capital? Where is the tax moratorium? This, what you propose to us here, is nothing more than a farm small parcel. This does not nearly compensate the massive costs of the tax hike on farm diesel. The president of the German farmers union therefore rightly accuses you of a loss of reality. 

Dear colleagues, I say to you what would be the most effective relief measure for the German agriculture: 

            Maximilian Mordhorst (FDP): Bad results for the AfD!

The immediate resignation of the Ampel government. Finally make free the way to new elections! 

I thank you.

[trans: tem]

Frank Rinck, June 6, 2024, Farming

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/172, pp. 22279-22280. 

Herr President. Valued colleagues. Dear fellow citizens. 

Today it is once again about further complicating the German fertilizer law for our farmers, and introducing yet more bureaucracy – 

            Sylvia Lehmann (SPD): Nein!

but one thing after the other. To begin with, it must be stated – and this we may not forget – that the problems deliberated here were first generally produced by the old parties. A faulty and very questionable nitrate monitoring network provided that just these nitrate values, upon which we here proceed, have come to an end in Brussels. 

            Karl Bär (Greens): That’s not in the monitoring! 

Unfortunately, this is made a theme only by us, and unfortunately none of you appear to see a need for a correction. 

Ladies and gentlemen, everything which was passed here in the last years in regards agriculture policy generally needs to be on the test stand. And do not worry: Once we of the AfD govern, we will correct all of your failures. That is a promise upon which the farmers in the future can rely. 

Basically, it can be said that the good,  professional practices of our farmers and their economic interests do not allow that more fertilizer comes into the field than the crops require. It all of course costs money and resources. And, ladies and gentlemen, no farmer squanders his money or resources; they want to work economically. If you would for once pass some time with real professionals – and I mean practicing farmers – 

            Sylvia Lehmann (SPD): We do that!

and not with whichever demagogue from your associations, you would know that. Yet what have you here today to decide? It’s about the introduction of a nationwide monitoring of active ingredients for fertilizer supply.  

Till Steffen (Greens): Don’t fall asleep up there! Man, man man!

Besides in our view, we could in fact say, in so far as it would be connected, that demonstrably clean water agricultural operations in red areas would finally be freed of senseless fertilizer duties. Under-fertilization is besides an exhaustion of the soil, and that is actually also a form of expropriation of the affected farmers. Nevertheless, of that there is in your draft law no word to be found. Your motion indeed sets this as a goal; yet it’s spongy there, that then this should be first clarified with the EU. 

Ladies and gentlemen, that is unacceptable. If the active ingredients monitoring does not here include distinct goals, then it is to be rejected; especially since, for the first in line operations, the monitoring means new bureaucracy burdens and documentation obligations. 

With that, we come then to the next point, the planned expansion of the material flow balance in §11 of the fertilizer law; you now call it “nutrient balancing”. Ladies and gentlemen, the material flow balance shall in the future be obligatory for all arable farms and bio-has facilities. Why is that actually? That is neither asserted in EU law, nor is it purposeful when at the same time shall come the active ingredients monitoring. 

The experts at the hearing – this, the colleague Staubinger already said – have distinctly indicated that this is not sensible and brings with it no recognizable uses at all. The material flow balance is therefore, and in view of your robust promises of deconstruction of bureaucracy at the farmers’ protests, to be eliminated in its entirety. 

Now on that we have plainly heard that this besides costs all otherwise than much money. Ladies and gentlemen, it is certainly not as if your draft law costs no money: A quarter of a million euros will each be assessed in the BLE [Federal Institute for Agriculture and Food] – for that, three new positions will created; thus then come three new green ideologues who will make it still more difficult for the farmers – and a half million euros for the Julius Kühn Institute. 

Karl Bär (Greens): These people shall certify EU fertilizer products with CE labels. Yet that is fully unrealistic!

I can well imagine what happens with this money: Still more green ideologues will then be employed. 

Ladies and gentlemen, you of the Ampel remain true to yourselves with your destruction of our German agriculture. The draft law put forward is just one additional vexation for the German agriculture. And we therefore reject it. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Guido Reil, February 26, 2024, Food Prices

European Parliament, Strasbourg, P9 CRE-PROV (2024)02-26(1-150-0000). 

Herr President. Dear colleagues. 

We speak today on the fight against inflation, on foodstuff prices and their consequences and basic origins. Foodstuff prices have in fact in the last two years dramatically risen by 29 percent. Blatant examples: Sugar, 74 percent; wheat flour, 69 percent; margarine, 50 percent. 

What does this mean? People are driven into poverty. Poor people starve. Especially severely affected: Our pensioners, the people who have worked for the prosperity in our country. Those who create the relief are in Germany besides honorary members at the German Tafeln [food banks]. We meanwhile have 1,000 Tafeln and these care for almost two million people in need. The Tafeln need to alleviate the greatest emergency, an emergency which the politicians have provided. 

Since what are the actual origins? Interesting is: The foodstuff prices decline globally, they rise only in Europe. Globally, they are meanwhile again at the condition of 2021. A study of the American agriculture ministry from 2020 forecast: If Europe implements the Green Deal, the per capita cost of foodstuffs increases around 150 dollars. They forecast that in 2020. Who wants to lower foodstuff prices needs to toss the Green Deal onto the trash heap of history. 

 

[trans: tem]

Sylvia Limmer, February 7, 2024, Farmers

European Parliament, Straßburg, P9 CRE-PROV(2024)02-07(3-040-0000). 

Herr President. 

And again this week outraged farmers stand in front of the the European Parliament in Straßburg, just as last week in Brussels. Do eggs, liquid manure and burning hay actually need to just blow up in your faces? 

It’s not only about the suspension of the idled acreage, not only about the stifling bureaucracy created by you, about Mercosur and unfair competition; it is not only about bio-quotas fixed by statute, bans on animal husbandry and care of wolves, the revisions of means of crop protection, and so forth and so on. 

Farmers plainly suffer from impractical political charlatans with their Green Deal and its hand-outs, and they do not want to let themselves be involved in the course of a fully confused climate rescue and to be degraded to CO₂ gardeners. 

Perhaps business wanders away without a sound, the farmers however are bound up with their land, and they will not weaken. And they now no longer allow themselves to be ignored. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

Bernd Schattner, January 18, 2024, Farmers’ Protests

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/147, pp. 18622-18623. 

Many thanks. Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Since 18 December 2023, tens of thousands in Germany again go into the streets for their right to a self-determined future. 

            Karl Bär (Greens): Against the AfD!

Ever fewer people want to allow their lives to be dictated by a removed, left-green political elite. The people have recognized that this Ampel does not represent their interests, but pursues one-sided ideological goals without regard to this country and its citizens. 

If the income figures from 2021-22 are superficially looked at, which have been identified in the 2023 agriculture report, one could gain the impression that for the farmers it doesn’t go so bad. After all, an income increase of 50 percent in the conventional area was again attained; in the eco area, still more four percent was earned. Yet who now says: “These figures show that it goes well for the German agriculture”, completely fails to recognize the seriousness of the situation. These profits only still occur because the farmers meanwhile no longer carry out urgently necessary investments. No one still invests in a stable or tractor when he does not know whether this investment is accounted long-term. Many farmers today do not know whether tomorrow their stable construction fulfills the animal welfare prerequisites. Thus ever more agricultural entrepreneurs consider giving up. 

So it sounds harsh: Regrettably, many farmers have decided for surrender. After all, since the year 2020, 7,800 agricultural operations have closed for ever; that is five and a half operations per day, a tendency strongly rising. The present figures also show this. Thus meanwhile the profits of the high-earning operations in the 2023-24 year have again in part broken down by 53 percent. 

And what does our Agriculture Minister do? 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Where is he, actually? He’s gone already! He’s                                afraid of you!

He demands that our farmers make their contribution to the savings measures. – Ja gut, substantive themes apparently do not interest him. – It is inexplicable that the farmers in times of higher fuel prices should also accept the most massive tax increases for farm diesel. At the same time, our neighbors from Belgium and Luxemburg, without any taxation on farm diesel, drive with their tows. After the elimination of the reimbursement, beside the Dutch, the German farmers drive with Europe’s most expensive diesel. 

At this point, a look at the CDU is worthwhile. For a good year, they have rejected an AfD motion which has the goal of doubling the refund. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): The CDU rejects all that is good! 

            Johannes Steiniger (CDU/CSU): You want to abolish all subventions!

Interesting before all is the reason why the motion was rejected. It is said in the conclusion that the CDU rejects the motion since it regards diesel as an environmentally harmful material. Now at once, the great change: The CDU commits itself to the maintenance of the diesel refund. 

Alfred Stegemann (CDU/CSU):  The AfD wants to abolish all subventions!

That shows the hypocrisy of this party in the face of the farmers and the working population; since, for all that, it is the Union which introduced the idling of acreage and has pushed forward the bureaucratization of agriculture. To now portray themselves as saviors of agriculture is to the highest degree untrustworthy. 

Ladies and gentlemen, now to the enemies of the Mittelstand and the working class. The Ampel government plans to introduce the farmer soli, and would thereby burden the German consumer with an additional 3.6 billion euros per year – an absolutely scandalous plan which hits those who are least able. Meat and milk will thereby become still more expensive. The money will trickle into the trade, and never arrive at the producer. 

Herr Özdemir, with this measure you make the country’s Tafeln [food banks] into the new supermarkets, because no one can longer afford the meals. The cheap imports from the Mercosur states and eastern Europe will further weaken the domestic farmers. The Ampel government again demonstrates that it wants to ruin its own people. 

We therefore demand: No alibi motions, but authentic solutions for our farmers’ problems. The farmers want to live by the work of their hands, without continual patronization by the Politik, especially by the Greens. Germany has the best soils, the cleverest heads – with exception of the government – 

            Lisa Badum (Greens): Unfortunately not in the AfD!

and the best technique to manage agriculture. Yet sadly we have a government which does not know how to value these resources. 

I would like to close with a new farmer’s rule: Who knows nothing and can do nothing, he then joins the Greens. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

Jörg Urban, January 8, 2024, Farmers’ Protests

AfD Kompakt, January 8, 2024. 

In regards the protests, we stand on the side of the farmers. The enthusiastic participation of tradesmen, shippers and a large part of the citizens shows: Our country urgently needs a change of politics. The green course of the established parties and the “climate transformation” of all areas of life moreover lead Germany to the abyss. 

We also in the future want affordable foodstuffs from the homeland. By means of fertilizer bans and a steadily increasing load of charges, the Federal and State government drive the domestic farmers to ruin. If this negative development is not stopped, we will soon need to feed ourselves by foodstuff imports. 

The CDU’s support of the protests is more than hypocritical. Certainly it has enormously increased the problems for the Saxon farmers, in that it has installed the Green Agriculture Minister Wolfram Günther in Saxony. And the steadily increasing CO₂ tax is an invention of the CDU. 

 

[trans: tem]

Sylvia Limmer, July 12, 2023, EU Climate Decree and Agriculture

AfD Kompakt, July 12, 2023. 

By means of an intentional, massive recession of agricultural area, this decree endangers our food security, threatens the livelihoods of farmers and grape growers and is a further step into an EU climate museum. Its basic premise, according to which species variety on idled acres is generally greater than on acres in operation, is moreover to be questioned. 

Had the CDU/CSU members as a part of the EVP delegation on the Environment Committee proclaimed themselves for the rejection of the proposed decree, and thereby discreetly talked over the tacit cooperation with the AfD, they might now seemingly act quietly. The revolt contrived by Manfred Weber against the EU Commission President with a CDU party book has failed. 

All the same, this sudden change of mind was politically dishonorable. Even in October 2019, the “From Farm to Table Strategy” was enthusiastically agreed to in a resolution; a strategy which propagated, besides the reconstruction of nature, the wholesale reduction and in part the complete ban of pesticides. To that pertains the recent statement of Peter Liese, the EVP’s environmental spokesman, that the Green Deal would be “energetically” supported by the EVP. And who frankly admitted that with the Green Deal and the nature reconstruction decree, and the associated expropriations and interdictions of the citizens in reference to nutrition, one needs to apply more slowly. Thus increasingly in Germany, evidently “politically disturbed” citizens need to be “cooked green” more slowly so that they, like the proverbial frog in the pot, do not before time take flight. Thus one does not act out of factual and substantial conviction but merely on the basis of political calculation. 

The AfD on that account from the beginning has represented a clear line which makes a theme of and categorically rejects the abolition of agriculture associated with the green-red strategy papers. Since the farmers need our support, for it is they who safeguard our food. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Peter Felser, December 15, 2022, Origin Labeling

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/76, pp. 9041-9042.

Right honorable Frau President. Herr Minister. Dear colleagues. Dear farmers.

That the animal husbandry labeling planned by you would be counter-productive for all participants, my colleague Protschka has already stated. You rightly receive criticism from all sides of the branch.  I cite, with permission of the President, the association of the meat industry: The law will contribute nothing to the reconstruction of animal husbandry but to the deconstruction of the supply security of German production and also presumably to the deconstruction of the already achieved progress in animal husbandry. – All here present need to give consideration to that. We simply cannot permit that in the present crisis, dear colleagues.

What on the other hand would be a strong support for the branch and all participants, and which is already long overdue, is the obligatory origin labeling [Herkunftskennzeichung] of all foodstuffs. We have repeatedly demanded it and today renew this demand with our motion [Drucksache 20/4889].

The reality however so appears that German agriculture finds itself in a hard displacement competition. Against foreign dumping of foodstuffs, the home farmers effectively have scarcely a chance. Environmental and animal protection play scarcely any role in foreign production. That is also in truth known to everyone here.

A transparent labeling of origin could nevertheless decisively change that. It cannot be, dear colleagues, that there are foodstuffs which contain additives from Poland, from China, from Brazil, which the consumer however simply does not see in a food market. What then is it for a label when thereon is: “Honey from EU and non-EU Countries”? Hello? From non-EU countries? Thus from all the world, from every planet? That is not consumer information, that is a spoof of the consumer, nothing else.

In my Allgäu, Allgäu milk is marketed which in part does not come from Allgäu. Where it says Allgäu milk, in the future it needs therein be Allgäu milk, dear colleagues. Period! All else would be deception of the consumer.

With origin labeling, domestic agricultural products would be visible at a glance to everyone. Producers and consumers could thus themselves decide for home products and thereby for very high animal protection and environmental standards. From all relevant surveys we know that, out there, this is explicitly desired by the consumers.

That this important decision is ever again postponed is irresponsible. Austria, France and Sweden have here already successfully gone ahead. There is thus no substantial or factual reason why we here could not also immediately introduce this in Germany. With our motion, we give to you the opportunity to finally introduce exactly this origin labeling for us in Germany.

Many thanks and a blessed Christmas.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, September 8, 2022, Agriculture Budget and Hunger

German Bundestag, September 8, 2022, Plenarprotokoll 20/51, pp. 5559-5560.

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable Herr Minister.

The Agriculture Ministry’s budget has in the last years regrettably received much too little attention. In the present crisis at the latest is shown how destructive was this assessment.

Right honorable Herr Minister, you in your speech in June of this year recounted that we needed changes, pragmatic solutions and planning security for the farmers – all demands to which my delegation colleagues and I directly subscribe. Yet honestly said, when I look at the numbers in your estimate, I see absolutely nothing of this. You simply continue to administer the status quo, otherwise nothing. And that in these times is a fatal policy.

What do the numbers show us? The biggest plus – and generally the only plus worthy of the name – is booked in the Agricultural Social Policy chapter. Sound good? Yes? I certainly see how the Ampel coalition writes this on the flag. It however is a fallacy; since this has nothing to do with your policy. That of course is reflected in the law’s mostly automatically advanced addition. Otherwise said: Here, your ministry certainly has no discretion; these numbers need be reset.

Note well, this plus comes in that there was a powerful minus last year. Here, where you within this chapter in fact have freedom of action, perhaps in regards the funding of the Agricultural Accident Insurance, you have again decided for less expenditures, contrary to the express and now so often repeated demands from the side of the farmers, from the Accident Insurance itself, and from our delegation. You still prefer to hang an additional millstone around the neck of the farmers – in these times, an absurdity.  

If your draft budget is further browsed, it is confirmed: It works according to the principle “left pocket, right pocket”. Many titles are simply re-parked and abbreviated; as for example with the special area plan “Promotion of Rural Development”: Whack – 30 million euros gone. This 30 million euros then lands in insect protection. Who believes that thereby operates any special nature conservation is disillusioned. No, the greater part of the extra expenditure will be employed so as to moderate the extra costs in regards the farmers which arise due to the provisions of the insect protection – the extra costs which you impose on the farmers themselves. Find the error!

A further example are the well-known expenditures for the community exercise “Improvement of Rural Structures and Coastal Protection”, GAK. Here, from the total title, 150 million euros will be withdrawn so as then in the GAK area to re-designate them with the new name of “Animal Welfare Reconstruction” – once again “left pocket, right pocket”. What exactly this new re-naming means, one can only riddle. It appears to me as if generally where “eco” and “animal welfare” is to the fore, a bit of money has been simply shifted so as to manage a little greenwashing – greenwashing: That in the Green doctrine sounds good, yet is fatal for the farmers. The best example of that is provided by the so-called aids for farmers. Here, the aids will be unnecessarily tied to the so-called greening premium. Here, the German government in Brussels is again more papal than the pope. However, it can also therein lie that your priorities are somewhat otherwise set than as with the rest of the population. I thereby mean your statement, Herr Özdemir, “…it may”, meaning hunger, “not be misused as an argument to make cuts in bio-diversity and climate protection”.    

Herr Minister, who in all seriousness puts climate protection ahead of the avoidance of hunger falsely sets his priorities. Something like that is simply destructive.

I certainly do not want to get started on the idling of acreage, the crop rotation and the eternal attendant procrastination, and also not on what this one-time exception with umpteen buts means for the farmers’ planning security.

That the Federal government is completely de-coupled from reality is also shown by your answer to the AfD delegation’s inquiry of a few days ago. Questioned as to the consequences if ever more fertilizer manufacturers close their plants, nevertheless came the serious answer – I cite: The substantial consequences for the domestic agriculture’s fertilizer supply are still not  recognized. The development of the gas prices and the reactions of the fertilizer industry referent to this continue to be closely observed.  

Ladies and gentlemen, for the farmers, that is just bare-faced scorn!

On other pages you plan almost 25 million euros of extra spending for the Agriculture Ministry and the subordinate officials, and all of that after already in June of this year, with the budget for 2022, you prepared an entire 80 million euros extra for this administrative apparatus. That means that in the good half year since you undertook the ministry, the expenditures for your ministry and its subordinate officials alone grew by fully 100 million euros. Those are your real priorities.

Dear Ampel, finally wake up! We are stuck in a crisis, and we cannot permit ourselves to dream and to administer the status quo. Outside in the real world, the prices are going through the roof. Not only the farmers no longer see a future. If here nothing is done,

            Vice-president Yvonne Magwas: Please come to a conclusion.

            Gero Clemens Hocker (FDP): Yes, please!

we will awake in a Germany which we simply cannot imagine.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Ralf Stadler, August 18, 2022, Bavarian Farmers' Protests

AfD Kompakt, August 18, 2022.

In a time of war in Ukraine, numerous export bans on agricultural goods, frequent breakdowns in supply chains and a steadily increasing inflation in regards foodstuffs, the EU’s environmental packet is a false signal. The professionally over-charged Minister Özdemir already needed to back-pedal and has signaled provisionally setting aside the non-cultivation obligation [Pflichtbrache] and the crop rotation for the 2023 harvest year. The unrealistic environmental policy of the Greens has thus failed all along the line. The farmers’ massive protests have thus shown effect.

From the Bavarian State government the farmers as usual receive no support. On the contrary: State Economy Minister Kaniber voted with the Greens in the Bundesrat for further restrictions on farming. She thereby endangers not only farm livelihoods but the population’s food supply. Only the AfD is strong for the farmers. Our food is not to become a luxury!

 

[trans: tem]