As of: February 1, 2024, 9:20 a.m
By: Andreas Mayr
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Traffic jam forms on the B2: Farmers keep blocking federal highway 2 between Eschenlohe and Oberau with their tractors and bulldogs. © Mayr
The farmers in the district showed their colors once again.
There were traffic jams on the motorway near Eschenlohe.
Eschenlohe/Großweil
– The protest between commuters, Porsche and the police begins in the colder hours of the day.
Klaus Solleder wears a hat with some festive symbols.
He has put on a warm sweater.
It's only a few degrees above zero outside.
They came from Eschenlohe, Schöffau, Unterammergau and a few other places.
40 Bulldogs, even more farmers.
Once again they want to show the district a message: “People should understand that they need the farmer.” That's what Klaus Solleder from Unterammergau, the district chairman of the farmers' association, says.
He is standing on federal highway 2 near Eschenlohe and an avalanche of cars is gradually piling up in front of him.
The farmers open and close the B 2 in two places every quarter of an hour.
A corridor always remains open for rescue workers.
They paid attention to that.
The blockade is also a message to Berlin: “If we want, we can bring this country, which is already reeling, to a standstill in just a few hours.” Of course they don’t want that, emphasizes Solleder.
It is much more a demonstration of the power of the powerless - at least that is how they feel when it comes to their own concerns and there are quite a few of them.
Why agriculture has become the way it is today is a highly complex matter.
A tangled ball of yarn that would take a lot of time to untangle.
That's not what Eschenlohe is about.
It is not per se about agricultural diesel and the subsidies that were debated in the Bundestag yesterday.
Today the agricultural budget is on the agenda.
The farmers had to increase the pressure again.
Anyone who talks to the women and men on site realizes that something bigger is pressing on them.
An inner unrest, so to speak, a concern for her profession and her country.
“We need a perspective for the future,” says Solleder.
In the industry alone there are - to put it figuratively - so many fields to cultivate: fertilizer regulations, animal welfare laws, tethered housing, emission protection when building stables, the veterinary medicines law, they often complain about “bureaucracy to the power of three,” is what the chairman calls it.
And then there are the social issues, pensions, migration, shortage of skilled workers, taxes.
Solidarity road users
When you talk about a country starting to bubble, these are the bubbling bubbles that are becoming visible.
Men and women in work pants framed by cars heading to the ski slopes, to work or somewhere else.
Anyone who shows solidarity with the farmers honks, anyone who thinks it's stupid rolls down their window and complains.
Christian Potempa and Alexander Fischer even drop out.
One from his Porsche, the other from his truck.
They have the same thing to say, just in different words.
They like what the farmers say.
“Although I want to go skiing,” says Christian Potempa from Utting.
Alexander Fischer drives coolant through Bavaria and would have liked to take part in the demonstration.
But he and his colleagues are not allowed.
He explains contracts that must not be broken in front of his van.
The region's farmers have met a lot of people like this recently.
“We are now professional demonstrators,” says one of the farmers jokingly as they stand together.
Over in Großweil, where colleagues are protesting quietly on the side of the road with bulldogs and banners, some young people say that the last few weeks have been their first in resistance, so to speak.
It feels good to see the other farmers on the street.
There hasn't been anything like this in a while, protests of this magnitude.
“It’s not normal,” says Solleder.
A road has never been closed.
That shows how much that means to them.
The farmers in the district are proud of their small-scale farming, which still drives out their own animals.
Around 70 percent have another full-time job.
They are idealists and guardians of a tradition.
But they fear that it will perish little by little.
In the vice grip between Brussels and Berlin, between huge industrial companies and ever new regulations, laws and requirements.
“We are afraid for our next generation,” says Solleder.
They have already achieved a lot, he emphasizes.
The green license plate remains.
Just one thing.
Solleder believes that more is needed, not just blah blah.
Everyone has to move now.
The traffic lights in Berlin, the government in Munich.
After 2 p.m. everything is moving again in Eschenlohe.
The farmers are rolling back home.
There is still enough to do there.
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summary of the farmers' protests in Bavaria