CDU on agriculture

The CDU wants the federal government to transpose EU law without additional national requirements so that Saxon farms face no competitive disadvantage. Farmers and foresters are to get less paperwork and more entrepreneurial freedom. Farmland is to be preserved.

The CDU wants to make work easier for farmers and foresters. Germany should not make EU rules stricter than needed. There should be less paperwork. Farmland should stay farmland. Farmers' groups should have a say early on.

The platform calls for involving professional associations in political decisions from the outset. The nitrate monitoring network is to be modernized so that polluters can be clearly identified and restrictions lifted in a targeted way. The CDU wants to phase in multi-peril crop insurance, keep or relaunch premiums for suckler animals, and suspend the rule that turns arable land into permanent grassland after five years. Clear origin labeling based on German standards is to apply to all food. Unused federal funds should be made available to other states.

The CDU wants to preserve livestock farming in Saxony and rejects tighter requirements for livestock farms. Fees related to slaughter are to fall, and regional slaughter capacity is to be supported.

The CDU wants farmers in Saxony to keep raising animals. The rules for this should not get stricter. Slaughter fees should go down. There should be more small local slaughterhouses.

The platform justifies its opposition to further tightening with the freedom and personal responsibility of farms. Veterinary fees at slaughterhouses and the meat hygiene fee are to be lowered permanently. To help direct marketers, the CDU wants to support private butchers in building regional slaughter capacity. It also wants to examine whether qualified butchers may carry out meat inspection themselves.

The CDU wants to support forest owners in converting and replanting forests and to make the climate benefit of managed forests the basis of forestry policy. It considers certifications such as FSC in state-owned forests excessive and intends to withdraw them.

The CDU wants to help forest owners plant new trees. It says a managed forest is good for the climate. The FSC label in state-owned forests should go. FSC is a label for wood with strict rules. The CDU thinks these rules go too far.

The support is also meant to reach forest owner cooperatives. Anyone converting forest to another use should in the future also be able to compensate with a payment, so that replacement planting does not consume farmland. The CDU wants to keep biogas and biomass plants as a decentralized, baseload-capable energy source and include them in the power plant strategy. Existing hunting law is to remain; the platform regards hunters as partners against game damage and animal diseases.