As of: March 15, 2024, 2:57 p.m
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A dummy dairy cow in German colors stands in front of the conference hotel on Erfurt's Theaterplatz.
© Martin Schutt/dpa
After months of farmers' protests, the federal and state agriculture ministers met in Erfurt.
Excessive rules and regulations for agriculture should now be thinned out.
Erfurt - After the farmers' protests, the federal and state agriculture ministers have agreed to curb the chaos of regulations for agriculture and forestry in Germany.
The bureaucratic effort for farmers should be reduced and the first steps will be implemented by mid-2024, it was said on Friday in Erfurt shortly before the end of the spring conference from ministerial circles in Erfurt.
A schedule was agreed upon with Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir (Greens).
According to the chairwoman of the Conference of Agriculture Ministers, Thuringia's department head Susanna Karawanskij (Left), the federal states have put a total of 194 proposals on the table to reduce bureaucracy, which the federal government is now examining.
Simplifications are to be introduced in the coming months.
Before the meeting, the German Farmers' Association had called for a reduction in bureaucracy.
“Our companies are overwhelmed by bureaucracy.
“This effort costs an immense amount of time and therefore money,” criticized association president Joachim Rukwied.
On the sidelines of the conference, farmers pointed out that there are different requirements in different laws when it comes to distance regulations for water protection, for example.
In order to document that requirements are being met, workers sometimes have to be deployed for days, said the vice president of the Thuringian Farmers' Association, Lars Fliege.
According to Bavaria's Agriculture Minister Michaela Kaniber (CSU), Özdemir has promised that he would like to discuss steps to reduce bureaucracy with the states again at the beginning of April.
“We will hold the federal government responsible to implement noticeable relief in a timely manner,” she said.
There are also bureaucratic burdens in the Animal Husbandry Labeling Act.
dpa