The Swabian farmer knows the numbers in his business very well. Ernst Buck pays an average of 1.45 euros per liter for the tractors on his farm in Holzkirch on the Swabian Alb – he gets 21 cents back from the state. If this benefit for agricultural vehicles were to be abolished, as the federal government is currently planning to do in order to plug part of the 17 billion euro budget hole, it would cost Buck just under 5,000 euros a year. “I don’t understand how stupid we are in Germany,” says Buck, about now making savings again for the farmers, who are already heavily burdened. He makes a living from growing grain and keeps pigs and sheep on his farm.
Not only will the diesel discount be eliminated, according to the federal government’s plans, farmers will also have to pay vehicle taxes for their tractors and semi-trailers in the future. They were previously exempt from this because they normally only use public roads to get from farm to field and back. Farmer Buck runs five semi-trailers in Holzkirch and has calculated that he would pay 900 euros in vehicle taxes for each of them, i.e. 4,500 euros a year. If the cuts come as announced, he will have to pay 9,500 euros more a year – in bad years that would be a quarter of his profit.
On Monday morning, farmers from all over Germany came to Berlin with hundreds of tractors to demonstrate in front of the Brandenburg Gate against the planned cuts. If the traffic light government does not withdraw the plans for agricultural diesel and vehicle tax exemptions, the farmers’ association says, there will be massive resistance at the beginning of next year. Some in the government already believe a kind of “perfect storm” is brewing.
Many farmers are happier than they have been for years
On average, farmers are not doing badly at the moment. The past few years have been good – also because of high food prices. What was seen as a sharp price increase by consumers meant comparatively high yields for many farmers. There is currently “a level of satisfaction among farmers that has not been seen since September 2014,” states the farmers’ association’s current situation report. When the farmers were asked about their satisfaction, they of course didn’t know anything about the federal government’s savings plans.
However, companies live in constant ups and downs, which can get on your nerves. “We work with nature,” says farmer Buck. “We are used to profits going up by 50 percent and then falling by 60 percent.” The prices for milk, grain or meat can fluctuate massively, depending on harvests and the situation on the world markets. What farmers have to pay off to the bank, for example because the super-powerful tractor or the new stable has not been paid off, remains constant. Land prices are also causing problems for many businesses, as more than half of the land is leased. Because demand is increasing but land cannot be increased, rent is also becoming more and more expensive. Over the past 20 years, the price has doubled on average. And a lease is always a temporary contract. If it expires, it usually becomes more expensive.
There are farmers who have become rich with their businesses – but there are also many who can barely make ends meet financially. This may explain why farmers are more satisfied than they have been in nine years – but at the same time their assessment of their future economic situation is worse than it has been since 2005.
Stephan Büssing, who runs a farm in Münsterland that farms crops and fattens bulls and pigs, is caught on the phone, but not at home, but in Berlin. He takes part in the farmers’ demonstration. The federal government’s plans are “crazy that must come to an end,” says Büssing. He expects additional costs of 50,000 euros per year – that would be more than 60 percent of his profit. “We’re all fed up,” says Büssing.
The future, as is the nature of things, is always the great unknown on farms. Hence the excitement when farmers now have to pay 21 cents more for a liter of diesel and vehicle tax for their tractors. For many companies this may be too much to bear. But for those who make tight calculations and don’t know what the next year will be like, it’s threatening.
And between 2010 and 2022 alone, according to figures from the Federal Statistical Office, out of 299,000 businesses at the time, more than 40,000 went out of business. At the same time, initiatives that could have financed the restructuring of agriculture have come to nothing – most recently a commission headed by the former CDU agriculture minister Jochen Borchert. She had recommended that the construction of new, more animal-friendly stables be financed through an “animal welfare levy”. This could have helped the animal owners who are increasingly coming under criticism. But it remained just an idea.
The Greenpeace expert believes that the cuts are “tolerable.”
Experts still warn against too much pessimism. After all, the planned cancellation would involve a multiple increase in agricultural subsidies from EU funds, says Martin Hofstetter, agricultural expert at Greenpeace. The deletions are therefore “definitely bearable”. It will also neither cause farms to die out “nor lead to the end of agriculture in Germany”. Instead, agriculture that works in a more climate-friendly manner could also be more sustainable. And in fact, all sorts of capabilities have played a role in the sales brochures for large tractors – but not diesel consumption. There is still room for improvement, and technical progress does not stop at agricultural machinery: even electric tractors or those with hybrid drives are now available on the market.
Ernst Buck, the farmer from Holzkirch near Ulm, does not see himself or his business in dire straits if the subsidies stop. But he also wants to defend himself: For the coming weeks he is planning vigils with other farmers in the Swabian Alb and wants to help organize smuggler demonstrations in Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Heilbronn and Ulm. “Actually, as entrepreneurs, we don’t go on strike,” says Buck. “But for many of us it’s about survival.”