Farmers fear food shortages from bypassing

Created: 05/26/2022, 02:00 p.m

District chairman Wolfgang Scholz (left) and the representatives of the local associations drew attention to the use of landscape by a bypass.

© Ralf Ruder

Farmers from the Weilheim area are protesting against the loss of land of up to 70 hectares due to the construction of a bypass.

The road construction endangers domestic food production.

Weilheim - district chairman Wolfgang Scholz, the managing director of the Weilheim office of the Bavarian Farmers' Association Thomas Müller and local representatives from the Weilheim area, who represent the farmers affected by the planned construction of the Weilheim bypass, attach importance to the situation being viewed realistically.

The figures given by the state building authority in Weilheim for the area required for the road, which are between around twelve and almost 30 hectares, would only take into account the net area.

If the road were built, it would be a motor road on which tractors would no longer be allowed to drive.

So on both sides farm roads are required so that the farmers can drive to their fields.

Added to this is the space required for new access routes,

Embankments and noise barriers as well as the designation of compensation areas for road construction.

According to the officials, the estimated loss of agricultural land of up to 70 hectares is quite realistic.

"Biggest possible tunneling"

In a position paper signed by Müller, Scholz, the district farmer Christine Sulzenbacher and twelve representatives of local associations, the farmers call for land savings when the bypass is built.

The best thing is “the largest possible tunneling” over which agricultural land is laid out again.

Instead of converting agricultural land into compensation areas, eco-accounts should be used.

In addition, the infrastructure serving agriculture must be preserved so that the development of the farmsteads and the cattle drive to the pastures are secured.

More roads, more traffic

According to Scholz, the farmers want to "send a clear signal" with these demands.

If more and more land were built on, less and less food could be produced.

In the long term, this could lead to problems with the food supply.

Everything that is not produced here has to be imported, which involves risks and makes no sense from an ecological point of view.

Two-track expansion

According to Müller, the farmers' protest is neither about "playing off East against West" nor about preventing road construction altogether.

Only the situation of agriculture should be adequately considered.

It should also be taken into account that there is a social change away from the demand for more and more car traffic.

According to the farmers' representatives, the two-track expansion of the Werdenfelsbahn could also reduce car traffic.

Additional roads, on the other hand, would result in more and more road traffic.

Alfred Schubert