In 1975 Martin Lechner started as a farmer. At the time, his home town of Straußdorf was still a separate municipality and had 46 farms, says Lechner. Half a century later he is one of the last farmers in town. Straußdorf has been a farming village for the longest time. “With me we are still five farmers,” says Lechner. And soon only four of them. The 66-year-old says his neighbor will also stop soon. “The referendum gave the rest.”
February 14, 2019 was the first day after what the initiators saw as a successful “People’s request for biodiversity – save the bees”. Three years have passed since then and in agriculture. The farms in Bavaria are becoming fewer. And the work on the remaining farms has changed with the new rules.
From Straußdorf it goes between fields and villages, where you can watch old farms falling into ruin. But there are also farmers like Bernhard Haimmerer, who continues to run the “Kramerhof” in Anzing in the seventh generation. Despite referendums.
In the spring he has had the same annoyance for three years: the so-called rolling ban. Farmers now have two weeks to move out, from March 1st to March 15th. Before they were more flexible. “Seven farmers could share one rolling machine,” says Haimmerer. Now, with four people, time is getting tight. Fewer farmers now need more equipment. “Of course it costs money.” At the district level, the rolling period can be extended. However, according to Haimmerer, this is not necessarily practicable. For example, when there is still snow in the south of the district but not in the north. Then the exemption will only help some of the farmers.
“Today, when I drive the tractor through the new housing estates, children hold their noses, although I don’t even deliver liquid manure”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/ebersberg/.”
In the scene, there is a lack of understanding about these and other rules. From Forstinning to Aßling and from Vaterstetten to Steinhöring. Many are also complaining about a change that also affects Martin Lechner in Straußdorf: a five meter wide edge of fields on streams must remain uncultivated. There are compensation payments for this, but they are not adequate.
When asked, the Bavarian Farmers’ Association reported that the farms were already in a field of tension before 2019, which was reinforced by the referendum. On the one hand there are cheap supermarket offers and low prices for the farmers. “Nevertheless, the requirements for environmental protection, animal welfare and animal husbandry are increasing”. Therein lies the crux of the problem.
Ask Josef Nagler from Forstinning, the Naglersepp, as they call him. The 63-year-old is a forester and part-time farmer. In the year of the referendum, he passed the business on to his son. On this day in February 2022, he is standing in front of the yard with a wheelbarrow, stacking wood. He has been working here for more than 30 years. What has happened in that time?
“The company sizes,” says Nagler. When he started, in 1989, he had 15 dairy cows, later 30. “I was still average then,” he says. At some point the price of milk dropped so much that it was no longer worth it. The Naglers gave up dairy farming. “Not a single dairy tried to change our minds,” says Nagler. “As if our product had never been needed.”
In Nagler’s perception, “acceptance for the farming profession has fallen.” The boys from Forstinning used to sit with him on the bulldog. “Today, when I drive the tractor through the new housing estates, children hold their noses, although I don’t even deliver liquid manure”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/ebersberg/.”
“It was easy to vote on because the consumer had to change zero.”
The farmers have also made mistakes, as some who commented admit. Perhaps, it is said, dairy farming should have been abandoned long ago. “Because the big farms and dairies drive you along,” says one, who prefers to remain anonymous because many of his colleagues still keep cows. Josef Nagler reports on farmers who would spread liquid manure near settlements at the weekend. “It doesn’t need that either.”
The EU wants to provide millions to motivate farmers to grow organically. Organic farmer Franz Lenz takes a critical view of this. “The willingness to change will decrease as a result,” he predicts. Because the funding for organic farming is getting worse in relation to conventional farming, according to the Ebersberg farmer’s chairman. “The shot will backfire.”
The referendum is a “trauma,” explains Markus Drexler, spokesman for the Bavarian Farmers’ Association, especially for organic farmers. It was “a punch in the stomach of farmers who have already worked in a climate-friendly manner”. Almost all farmers criticize the fact that nothing has changed in other areas.
What’s next? “The desire has created trenches that are not easy to bury,” says organic farmer Lenz. Many colleagues shared the sense of injustice. Because 95 percent point the finger at the small minority of farmers. “It was easy to vote on this because the consumer had to change nothing,” says Lenz.
What could the individual change? Lenz: “Why are these private rock gardens still allowed?” There is also “still no effective measure to curb land use,” says Lenz. “The whole story was one-sided.”