Agricultural policy: Özdemir wants to enable more wheat cultivation

agricultural policy
Özdemir wants to enable more wheat cultivation

In view of the tense grain markets caused by the war in Ukraine, Federal Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir is working to postpone EU requirements for changing arable crops.

“This would allow our farmers to produce more wheat,” said the Green politician to the partner newspapers of the New Berlin Editorial Company and the “Stuttgarter Zeitung”/”Stuttgarter Nachrichten”.

It is about 2023 effective regulations, according to which, for example, winter wheat may no longer be cultivated two years in a row. “I am now negotiating with the EU Commission to postpone this regulation,” said Özdemir. With this proposal, one would also have to “not get close to the few areas for species protection”.

As a result of Russia’s war against Ukraine, which is a major exporter of wheat, international markets are tight and prices are rising. In addition, energy and fertilizer costs are rising. Winter wheat, which is sown in autumn, is the most important German cereal. According to the ministry, it is grown on average on about a quarter of the total arable land.

To relieve the farmers, Özdemir has already made it possible, among other things, that grass and plants from certain “ecological priority areas” may be used as fodder this year. This should mitigate price increases. However, he opposes further demands from the federal states to be able to do everything again on fallow land and to grow grain there, for example.

The Bundestag debates the situation and possible countermeasures in a current hour on Wednesday afternoon. Under the title “Avoid hunger – produce more food instead of shutting down arable land” she has applied for the opposition Union.

dpa