Status: 15.01.2024, 06:21 a.m.
By: Rudi Stallein
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At walking pace: The farmers' demo in the Nordlandkreis caused long traffic jams on Saturday afternoon, like here on the B11 near Waldram. © Sabine Hermsdorf-Hiss
The support sometimes moves them to tears. Ruth-Maria Frech is a young farmer and organizer of the farmers' demonstration in Wolfratshausen. We visited them.
Wolfratshausen/Irschenhausen – She had imagined the start of the day differently. Getting up at 5 a.m., milking cows, feeding cows. Like every day. That was the plan. "Most of the time the children continue to sleep, but today I was ordered straight back to bed," says Ruth-Maria Frech and laughs. Her eight-month-old daughter Franziska wanted to be breastfed, and the soon to be three-year-old Johanna wanted to go to the stable. "The restlessness is probably transmitted to the mother," the 32-year-old suspects. For them, it's not a day like any other. "You don't organize something like this every day, and it's not like I go to a demonstration every day."
Farmer Ruth-Maria Frech runs a farm in Irschenhausen. Together with her daughter Johanna, she takes care of the cows on Saturday mornings. © Rudi Stallein
Hundreds of tractors paralyze Wolfratshausen - We visited the protest leader in the stable
When she took over her parents' farm in May 2017, the young farmer from Irschenhausen "took on a few offices", including that of the local chairwoman of the Icking-Dorfen-Wolfratshausen farmers' association. As such, she is responsible for organizing the farmers' demonstration, which is to roll through the rafting town in a few hours. At 7.30 a.m., she carries the last buckets of water into the drinking trough for the calves. There are 50 dairy cows in the barn, giving the "cheeky milk", as she calls her product, plus almost as many offspring. Outside at the grass silo, Frech's friend Johann fills the mixer wagon, accompanied by his daughter Johanna on the child seat of his tractor. "The mixer wagon is like a Thermomix, only bigger," the 27-year-old explains to our newspaper.
Farmers' demonstrations in Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen: On the morning before the big demonstration, Frech is still relaxed
Your own breakfast will have to wait. "There is no such thing as continuing and the animals are not cared for," explains the farmer's wife. While Johann and Johanna spread the fresh food in the barn, Ruth-Maria Frech has swapped her boots, softshell jacket and work trousers for jeans and a sleeveless black top and put her headset back on. She likes to listen to podcasts, the farmer's wife explains, but in the last few days she has had to make constant phone calls because of the organization of the demonstration. So far, she has only been able to take part in a few actions herself. On Monday, she had been assigned as a steward at the demonstration in Munich, and the Saturday before she took part in a spontaneous demonstration when farmers positioned themselves with their bulldogs on the bridges of the A95. "Hats off to me for how it went," says Frech.
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As she talks, she carries her daughter Franziska in her arms through the warm living room, puts sausage for breakfast on the kitchen table and gets excited. About "regulatory mania" and "bureaucratic rage" and about a lot more that is currently driving the farmers onto the streets, especially the "tax breaks that they want to cut from us".
Bauering complains: "Don't blame the traffic lights alone. They've made messes in the past, too."
The Irschenhauser complains about "things that are determined from above, but that have nothing to do with practice". This had already started with the fertiliser ordinance as soon as she took over the farm six and a half years ago. "What's the point of studying if half of the regulations of that time are no longer valid today," she says, criticizing the government's lurching course in agricultural policy. "I don't blame the traffic lights alone," says Frech, "they've also made messes in the past."
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"I was in tears": Farmer overwhelmed by the encouragement
The young farmer hopes that the protests in recent days will help to ensure that "those up there listen to the people in the field and implement it". And above all, meet the minimum demands: withdraw the elimination of tax breaks for agricultural vehicles and agricultural diesel. After all, the demonstrations in recent days have had the effect "that a large part of the people have understood that every subsidy is important for the supply of food. And that it has arrived in society that we, the farmers who produce food, provide the food." And there is another positive aspect to the whole thing: "It's good for the farmers to see that people stick together. It's a very nice feeling: the sight of it has brought tears to my eyes."
Demonstrator: As head of the Icking-Dorfen-Wolfratshausen farmers' association, Frech organized the protest. © Rudi Stallein
Banners on tractors: Farmers' demonstration in Wolfratshausen brings 240 Bulldogs onto the streets
Time has passed on to chatting. One last look at the list of helpers on the kitchen table. "It should be enough," says the farmer's wife with satisfaction. Enough folders have been found. While she puts on new diapers for her little daughter before she goes to grandma with her older sister so that mom and dad can demonstrate in peace, Johann is busy attaching banners to the two mighty John Deere tractors. "Now it's going to be tight," snorts Ruth-Maria Frech as she fastens her poster with cable ties. "But you can't be late."
Large-scale demonstration paralyzes traffic on federal highway
A little later, she rolls through Wolfratshausen at the head of the tractor train. The police counted 240 bulldogs, some of which were lined up for two kilometers. "Unbelievable, I'm still a bit speechless. That was madness," reports the organizer when she is back on her farm in Irschenhausen a few hours later, enriched by a few feelings of happiness and goosebump moments. "Apparently, a lot of people went there specifically to clap and support us." Ruth-Maria Frech noticed "a lot of thumbs up" on her ride. "This support feels good. It's balm for the soul."
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