AfD on agriculture

The AfD gives self-sufficiency based on regionally produced food priority over other goals of farm policy. It wants to keep farm subsidies as long as imports are not held to the same standards, and to direct support toward farms that actually produce food.

The AfD wants more food to come from the region. Germany should need to import less food. Farmers should keep getting money from the state. The money should go to farms that produce food.

The platform considers the level of self-sufficiency too low, especially for fruit and vegetables, and blames price pressure and regulations. The conflicts over scarce land are to be fundamentally reviewed. A new definition of farm businesses would put food supply at the center and apply to the planned farm structure law and to the allocation of land held by the BVVG (the federal agency that sells formerly state-owned farmland). This is meant to keep pure energy producers, real estate speculators and non-farming investors away from subsidies. In principle the AfD backs a market-based approach; organic and conventional farms should be treated equally.

The AfD wants farmers to be able to make a living from their traditional forms of operation. They should get more professional leeway and face fewer regulations and paperwork duties. Regional production and marketing should become a large part of economic development funding.

The AfD wants farmers to be able to live from their work. Farmers should have fewer rules. They should decide more for themselves. The state should give more support to selling products from the region.

The platform says EU and federal regulations restrict farmers unreasonably, with added risks from future rules. The AfD finds it understandable that farmers therefore turn to income from wind and solar plants, but says these are profitable only with subsidies. According to the platform, farmers also maintain the landscape and are a fixed part of rural life. Local structures for producing and marketing traditional products should receive substantial funding.

The AfD wants to regulate the market for farmland so that farmers from the area get priority when buying. It is critical of land purchases by investors from outside agriculture. It announces a law of its own for this purpose.

The AfD wants local farmers to get first chance at buying farmland. It wants to make a law for this. Investors without a farm should find buying harder.

Investments should benefit farms and not be pure financial speculation. Land held by the BVVG should also be sold to local farmers. For plots larger than two hectares, a sale would be possible without a permit only if the buyer lives in Germany as an individual or is based here as a company; the platform calls this the Danish model. The AfD concedes that earlier attempts at a farm structure law in Brandenburg proved difficult.

The AfD wants to end the EU's Common Agricultural Policy in the long term and return responsibility to Germany. In the short term, farmers are to be relieved by Germany not interpreting EU rules more strictly than required.

The AfD wants Germany to decide on farming by itself again. Today the EU makes many of the rules. The AfD says this would mean less red tape. First, a study should check how this could work.

The platform calls the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) the real problem for farming. It argues that under national control, red tape could be cut more easily and support targeted better. As a first step, the AfD wants to launch a feasibility study on a system change in farm subsidies through the conference of agriculture ministers. Until then, farmers are to be relieved within the existing support schemes and given planning certainty.

The AfD wants to give farmers better legal protection against unfair practices by large retail and processing companies and to promote direct sales. Regional products are to get priority in stores and in public cafeterias.

The AfD wants to protect farmers from big supermarket chains. Farmers should be able to sell their products directly more easily. Supermarkets should not sell foreign asparagus during the local season. Schools should get more food from the region.

According to the platform, the four largest retail chains can dictate prices to producers. As remedies it names better protection under competition law and organizing farms into producer groups. Labeling would be reversed: goods that do not come from Brandenburg or Germany would be marked. While regional seasonal produce such as strawberries or asparagus is available, stores should not sell comparable foreign produce alongside it. In tenders for catering in public institutions such as schools, offering regional products should be a key criterion.

The AfD rejects bans and state directives in food policy. Instead, the origin and ingredients of food should be labeled clearly and understandably so that everyone can decide for themselves what to eat.

The AfD wants no bans on food. Everyone should decide for themselves what to eat. Food should clearly show where it comes from. The ingredients should also be easy to read.

The platform describes its food policy as freedom-oriented and sets it apart from a policy it calls paternalistic. Citizens should decide freely and on their own responsibility what they eat. The state should support them with transparent information on origin and ingredients.