Stephan
Protschka
Farm
Labor
AfD
Kompakt, March 30, 2020
[Stephan Protschka is an Alternative für
Deutschland Bundestag member from Bavaria and is the AfD’s agriculture policy
spokesman in the Bundestag.]
Each
year some 280,000 seasonal workers and harvest helpers from neighboring
European countries bring in the fruit and vegetable harvest in Germany. With
the entry stop following the Corona pandemic, this will unfortunately this year
not be possible. That is an acute danger for the economic existence of
thousands of domestic farmers and for the important supply of fresh fruit and
vegetables. The Federal government has failed to grant the entry permits for
European harvest helpers and now sets up a job mediation platform to find
sufficient domestic harvest help. The Federal government knows that is by far
insufficient. Yet it appears to be indifferent to the dramatic consequences.
What
is now most important is to do everything
possible to grant the entry permits for the relevant European harvest
helpers. With a quarantine solution, that is a risk-free possibility. No farmer
understands how refugees are permitted to come to Germany yet there is an entry
ban on harvest help. Alongside that, a stimulus must be procured for farmers,
domestic labor and the unemployed, as we have already demanded in our our
motion (19/18115).
We
should also consider during the emergency whether or not it would be possible
to have school children from the 10th grade and students help with
the harvest. If we do not succeed in allowing the entry of European harvest
help, then not only will the existence of thousands of fruit and vegetable
farmers be destroyed, we will soon no longer have any fresh fruit and
vegetables. That unconditionally must be prevented. I therefore demand decisive
action from the Federal government. For that, we have laid the required
measures on the table.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
