Now don’t let it be said again: the farmers. They may be lacking in all sorts of things, certain tax reliefs for example, and they probably also feel like they are lacking something like respect and perspective. But what they probably lack the least is what they have just done to attract attention with their agricultural diesel. According to figures from the Federal Motor Transport Authority, there were exactly 539,961 agricultural and forestry tractors in Bavaria at the beginning of 2023.
Although, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, there are only a good 100,000 businesses left, that doesn’t necessarily mean that every Bavarian farmer can have more than five tractors to take part in the next rally, each with something rhymed or painted on the front loader. Because a farm like this is usually a family business. The previous generation and especially the next generation are often still at the tractor. Furthermore, if the state government’s estimate is correct, even at its peak, only one in ten Bavarian tractors was used to plow the vast field of politics.
Apart from that, almost every third tractor in Germany is on the road in Bavaria and is therefore never a “tractor”, but rather a “Buidog” or “Bullog”, in memory of him Lanz Bulldog HL 12 from 1921, the first real tractor ever in this country. The tractor is only a good 100 years old and has since then proven itself not only to increase agricultural labor, but also to reinforce farmers’ demands. It is simply the ultimate land machine. By the way, when it comes to painting, most farmers choose green.
But when it comes to labor: according to the magazine’s special tractor issue, every single horsepower costs a lot to purchase agricultural today from 2021 around 790 euros. And with twelve HP back then on the Lanz it was no longer enough; the average for new tractors was around ten times that. In view of rising prices, the total number of tractors has recently increased only slowly, with fewer and fewer companies. So far there hasn’t been much use of electromobility in agriculture. The battery capacity is far from enough for a day of work in the field, and probably not enough for a trip to Theresienwiese either. So it takes a bit of diesel to get to Munich. Previously at a reduced tax rate for agricultural purposes.