CDU on agriculture

The CDU wants to set up a separate ministry for agriculture, forestry, and winegrowing to underline the importance of these sectors for society and supply. The main land users' associations are to get the same rights and duties as recognized conservation groups.

The CDU wants to create a new ministry. It will deal with farming, forests, and winegrowing. Farmers' associations should get more rights. They should have as much say as nature protection groups.

Whether a separate agriculture law makes sense for putting the associations on equal footing is to be examined. The "Zukunftspakt Hessische Landwirtschaft" and the cooperation agreement between agriculture and conservation remain the basis of farm policy. The program highlights the family-run farm and wants to raise the standing of the profession. Knowledge about farming is to get more room in daycare centers and schools, and projects such as "the farm as a classroom" will continue.

The CDU wants to market regional food more strongly and use it more often in public cafeterias, daycare centers, and schools. Processing businesses such as dairies, mills, and slaughterhouses are to be kept in the region.

The CDU wants more food from Hessen. Daycare centers, schools, and cafeterias should use more of it. There will be a campaign for products from Hessen. Dairies, mills, and slaughterhouses should stay nearby.

The organic model region of Hessen is to become a "regional model region" that also includes conventional farms. "GUTES AUS HESSEN" is to serve as an umbrella brand for regional marketing, alongside a campaign called "Natürlich von hier." Regional start-ups with new marketing models get separate support. Regional meat processing is to be made easier, for example for home slaughter, small butcher shops, and on-pasture slaughter. The state plans investment funding for slaughterhouses, and standards the CDU regards as excessive are to be lowered.

The CDU wants to implement EU farm funding in Hessen so that the programs involve little bureaucracy and are used by as many farms as possible. Besides general investment support, it plans special funds, for example for livestock, crop protection, and insect protection. It regards conventional and organic farming as equal in value.

Farmers get support money. The CDU wants to make applying easier. There should be extra money for special tasks. For example, for better barns or modern technology. For the CDU, organic farms and other farms are worth the same.

The new agri-environment program centers on a successor scheme for diverse arable crops, support for alternative energy crops, the compensatory allowance for disadvantaged areas, and investment aid for individual farms. "Digital farming" and precision equipment for applying pesticides are also to be funded. Organic farming is to get special support where extra effort concretely serves the protection of the environment, species, soil, or water. Farms should be able to try new sources of income, such as industrial hemp, agri-photovoltaics, or agroforestry. The CDU wants to expand training, advice, and help for young farmers and to support farms with climate protection and adaptation.

The CDU wants plants from new breeding techniques such as CRISPR/CAS not to be treated legally like genetically modified organisms. It advocates a swift, science-based distinction at EU level.

There are new ways to breed plants. One is called CRISPR/CAS. The CDU says this is not the same as genetic engineering. The EU should set clear rules on this quickly.

According to the program, the distinction should be transparent and based on scientific findings. The matter is decided at European level, where the CDU intends to press for it. Growing modern varieties is, for the CDU, one of the new income sources farms should try.

The CDU wants more livestock farming in Hessen and plans to fund the modernization of farms to achieve it. It relies on the Borchert plan for restructuring animal husbandry, mandatory husbandry labeling, and secured investments.

The CDU wants more livestock farming in Hessen. Farmers should modernize their barns. They get money for this. Labels on meat should show how the animals lived. Farmers who invest should be able to rely on the rules.

A conversion program is meant to make husbandry more animal-friendly; the CDU calls on the federal government to take the necessary steps. Investments are to be protected over the full depreciation period through contractual moratoria on rule changes and contracts for difference. For permits for farm buildings, the CDU wants practical rules, for example in the clean air and noise regulations (TA Luft, TA Lärm) and the Industrial Emissions Directive. Because pig farming has declined, a roundtable with the farms is planned. Dairy farms are to get help with automation.

The CDU wants to make it easier to get compensation for damage caused by returning species such as wolves, lynx, beavers and otters, and to reverse the burden of proof. Wolf protection measures for grazing livestock would also be fully funded across Hesse.

Wolves, lynx, beavers and otters live in Hesse again. Sometimes they cause damage. The CDU wants people to get money for this more easily. Farmers should no longer have to prove the damage themselves. The state should pay the full cost of protection against wolves.

The platform says the state has a special responsibility for species that are returning or being resettled. Compensation rules are to work better in practice, and the burden of proof is to be reversed. As prevention, the CDU wants to fund wolf protection measures by livestock keepers at 100 percent throughout Hesse.

The CDU wants to cap the loss of agricultural land at 2.5 hectares per day and agree on a package of measures with farmers. This includes priority for building within existing settlements, an end to compensatory tree planting on farmland, and agri-photovoltaics as the standard.

Farmland is lost every day, for example to buildings. The CDU wants to limit this strongly. The limit should be 2.5 hectares per day. Replacement forests should no longer be planted on fields. Solar panels should be built so that farming can continue below them.

Nature conservation offsets are to run through eco-point trading, measures integrated into farm production, and compensation payments, and the land-sparing clause in federal conservation law is to be applied strictly. Compensatory afforestation on farmland is to end, and none will be needed for clearings done for conservation reasons. Agri-PV is to replace open-field solar through rules and funding of the extra cost, with earnings shared fairly between owner and tenant farmer. A new clearing office and existing land transaction law are to limit the withdrawal of land from farming. The platform calls for proper compensation where land use is unavoidable and wants faster land consolidation procedures.

The CDU wants to suspend the set-aside of cropland required under EU farm subsidies. Fallow land is to be opened temporarily for all crops nationwide, and conservation-law restrictions on agricultural production are to be reduced.

The EU requires farmers to leave part of their fields unused. The CDU wants to pause this rule. Farmers should be allowed to plant unused land again for a time. Nature protection rules should restrict farming less.

The platform announces that conservation-law limits on farm production will be reduced. At the federal level the CDU wants fallow land in Germany to be temporarily opened for growing all crops. The obligation to set aside cropland, which is tied to European farm payments, is to be suspended.