Between Lake Constance, Darmstadt and Bremen: The cultivation of German strawberries is becoming increasingly expensive and unprofitable.
The minimum wage for harvest workers has been criticized.
And first farmers give up.
Darmstadt/Vechta – Inflation, energy prices, staff shortages: German agriculture is struggling with factors that have a massive impact on the production of its products.
The fruit growers between the south and north are under massive pressure.
Inflation, energy prices, staff shortages: German fruit growers are under pressure
Among them are those farmers who grow strawberries.
The main growing areas for the popular sweet fruit are on Lake Constance, in southern Hesse around Darmstadt-Dieburg and in Lower Saxony in the Weser-Ems region.
Farmers are struggling everywhere there.
At the beginning of the 2023 harvest season, they criticize the new minimum wage in Germany.
Quite a few fruit growers believe that the cultivation of German strawberries is no longer profitable.
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In Lindau on Lake Constance you can buy strawberries at a market.
But: Soon no longer from regional cultivation?
(archive photo)
© IMAGO / Westend61
An example: "We will no longer produce strawberries in Lindau in the future," fruit farmer Klaus Strodel from Weißensberg on Lake Constance told the
Schwäbische Zeitung
: "Politicians will do away with it.
Due to the minimum wage, we have high wage costs in a labor-intensive culture.” To put this in context: the statutory minimum wage was raised from 10.45 euros to twelve euros an hour in autumn at the instigation of the federal government consisting of the SPD, Greens and FDP.
Strawberries: Farmers are struggling with rising costs, and some farmers are significantly reducing the area under cultivation
"The supermarkets take our goods, but pay the same price," said Strodel.
And that is a losing proposition.
Walter Witzigmann from Wasserburg on Lake Constance, on the other hand, reduced his strawberry fields from 1.5 hectares to 300 square meters.
He relies exclusively on direct marketing.
According to the Schwäbische Zeitung
, Witzigmann
also criticizes the minimum wage that foreign harvest workers also receive.
"Who's going to pay for that?
I've been doing the job since 1981," he is quoted as saying: "There were many bad years, but things always went uphill.
It's only going down now.”
As early as 2022, strawberry cultivation had caused great concern.
The supply was large because it was very warm and sunny in the spring.
Because of the onset of inflation, however, customers bought less.
The result was a massive price drop to an average of less than five euros for a kilo of strawberries.
Since the spring of 2022, however, the costs for fertilizers, pesticides and young plants have been rising continuously, explained Eva Würtenberger from the Agrarmarkt-Informations-Gesellschaft (AMI).
The high energy prices also affect transport costs.
For example, the North Rhine-Westphalia Chamber of Agriculture had already pointed out at the end of May 2022 that some farmers would forego the strawberry harvest in future because it was simply no longer worthwhile.
Strawberries from Germany: In addition to costs, price falls are affecting producers
According to
the Upper Hessian press,
fruit growers around the district town of Marburg are also complaining about the fall in prices.
"The number of fruit-growing companies in general and also of cherry-growing farms is continuously decreasing," Andreas Klein from the Hessian State Association for Commercial Fruit Growing told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)
in March 2022
.
Even then, the minimum wage was described as a problem, although it was still 10.45 euros.
The now twelve euros per hour are "simply not feasible for many, and some just fall by the wayside," said Klein.
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Cost-intensive cultivation: a strawberry plantation near Darmstadt-Dieburg.
© IMAGO / Zoonar
Does the whole economic factor wobble?
Strawberry cultivation is widespread in Hessen's agriculture.
The largest areas are in the Darmstadt-Dieburg district, in the Wetterau district and in the Main-Taunus district.
For classification: In 2021, around 170 Hessian farms used around 1140 hectares of land to grow strawberries, more recent figures for 2022 are not yet available.
Strawberries: Harvest workers earn much less in Spain, Italy and Greece
Another example from Germany: In Lower Saxony farmers were still growing strawberries on 2900 hectares in 2018, in 2022 it was only 2400 hectares.
Which still means more than a quarter of all German cultivated areas.
As reported by the NDR, producers from the district of Hildesheim near Hanover, for example, sold 30 percent fewer strawberries last summer.
Another challenge: As the
Schwäbische Zeitung
writes, German strawberry farmers are competing with producers from Spain, Italy and Greece, where harvest workers earn a fraction of the German minimum wage.
Which, in turn, means cheaper strawberries on supermarket shelves.
According to the report, more than half of the costs are labor costs.
For example, because plants under foil have to be ventilated or because straw has to be added.
Maybe some fruit lovers can no longer afford the strawberries from Germany.
(pm)
List of rubrics: © IMAGO / Westend61