Özdemir plan makes waves: pig farmers see themselves before the end

Created: 01/16/2023 14:06

By: Franziska Schwarz

Cem Özdemir (Greens), Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture © Christophe Gateau/dpa/Archive image

Green Minister Özdemir wants to promote species-appropriate animal husbandry.

A state seal for consumers is to come.

But farmers are up in arms.

Bonn - Animal husbandry should soon meet higher standards in Germany.

But the plans of Federal Minister Cem Özdemir (Greens) are met with criticism from farmers.

"This is a program that amounts to a dismantling."

Even clearer tones came on Monday (January 16) from the meat industry association.

Özdemir's Ministry of Agriculture is planning the following, preferably this year:

• First, pig farmers should be able to get money.

  Companies with standards that are well above the mandatory legal requirements should benefit.

• “Animal and environmentally friendly” new buildings and conversions of stables are to be funded.

• The ongoing additional costs of better husbandry are also to be subsidised.

• The traffic light coalition wants to provide one billion euros as "start-up financing" by 2026.

A lever for more animal welfare should also be a logo that obligatorily indicates the type of husbandry.

As a first step, Özdemir wants to launch it with fresh pork in the trade.

A system with five categories is planned: from the legal minimum standard in the barn to organic.

Meat from abroad can be labeled voluntarily.

However, Rukwied criticized: “One wants to collect upper limits for the subsidy, for example up to 3000 fattening pigs sold per year.

This excludes the majority of farms that will be farming pigs in the future.” The industry wants to improve animal husbandry – but the planned regulations are not helping, they are a threat to their future.

Animal welfare in pigs: meat association against Özdemir concept

Further pressure arises for the farmers because many customers buy the cheapest products because of inflation.

This also has an impact on the industry-supported "animal welfare initiative", which rewards owners for certain higher standards.

Animal welfare meat is no longer as popular as it was before, explained Rukwied.

“Germany says goodbye to self-supply with food,” the Association of the Meat Industry (VDF) also criticized the concept.

It is driving German farmers out of animal husbandry, warned VDF board member Gereon Schulze Althoff.

Traffic light coalition: The Scholz cabinet at a glance

View photo gallery

State labeling of meat: "Glimmer of hope for the climate"

Meanwhile, the German Environmental Aid (DUH) warned against delaying the introduction of the state seal.

Business associations "stubbornly" stuck to the current "misleading" animal welfare label, wrote the DHU in a press release.

However, the two lowest husbandry levels could also be provided with this voluntary product imprint, although it is “mostly meat from factory farming”.

also read

Lambrecht resigns: CDU expresses first successor preference – and puts pressure on Scholz

TO READ

Putin's new miracle weapon: the "Zirkon" hypersonic missile as a nightmare for military strategists?

TO READ

Ukraine commander now concedes defeat in Soledar - Several dead in explosion in Russia

TO READ

Lambrecht successor: Scholz in a dilemma as a rule – does he only have one option?

TO READ

Military expert Masala becomes clear in “Lanz” – on the subject of migration: “You spit in their face”

TO READ

Fancy a voyage of discovery?

My space

In the opinion of DHU Managing Director Sascha Müller-Kraenner, the planned state labeling "finally provides incentives to restructure animal husbandry" and thus a "glimmer of hope in the fight against the climate-damaging overproduction of meat".

Pig farmers who are "stuck in the price crisis" could also benefit.

On Monday, the animal welfare seal was also an issue at a Bundestag hearing.

The CDU was then appalled.

"The hearing made it clear that Cem Özdemir's proposal for state animal husbandry labeling is an animal welfare killer," said agricultural expert Albert Stegemann: "If the draft law were implemented as it is before the Bundestag, this would be the end of well-known and proven private sector labels like the 'animal welfare initiative'."