FDP on agriculture

The FDP wants more support for digital technology in agriculture and wants to raise the farm investment program (AFP) to at least €40 million a year. It also calls for a federal digitalization strategy for agriculture. The platform argues that higher standards are only possible if farms can earn money with new technology.

The FDP wants more modern technology on farms. There should be more funding for this. One funding program should get at least 40 million euros a year. The federal government should also make a plan for digital farming.

The farm investment program (AFP) is to be raised back to at least €40 million a year as a first step, with digital technology as a funding priority for environmentally friendly crop farming and animal-friendly livestock keeping. A federal digitalization strategy should settle questions of data ownership, transparency toward customers, and access to public geographic and land registry data. Digital networks that let consumers request food according to their own preferences should be supported. Expertise should be taught in training, degree programs, and continuing education, without added qualification requirements or proof-of-competence rules. Food-sector start-ups should also be eligible for support in Bremen.

The FDP demands that crop protection substances be approved whenever the responsible German and European agencies declare them safe. The platform regards crop protection as sustainable because it uses land efficiently and enables healthy food. Poisonous ragwort is to be controlled more closely.

Farmers protect their plants with products against disease and weeds. Agencies test these products. The FDP says: tested and safe products must be allowed. Poisonous ragwort plants should be controlled better.

The assessments of the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety, the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, and the European agency EFSA are to be decisive. Substances these bodies classify as safe for specific uses should be approved. For ragwort, which the platform describes as highly toxic to people and animals, the FDP wants regulation and checks, especially on publicly owned land. It also calls for standardized testing methods and limit values for food and animal feed.

The FDP wants to relieve agriculture of red tape and what it sees as unnecessary requirements, and to give farms planning certainty. It rejects livestock caps in building law and municipal approval requirements. For fertilizer use, the needs of crops at each location should remain the standard.

The FDP wants fewer rules for farmers. Farmers should still be able to expand their farms. Building law should not set a maximum number of animals. Towns should not have to give extra approval for keeping animals.

Building law should continue to leave farms room to develop. The FDP calls for reliable conditions so that investments can be planned long term, and wants economic necessities weighed equally with ecological questions. Fertilizer use should keep following what crops need at a given site. In regions with too much liquid manure, the platform relies on transporting it to arable regions and on technology for processing manure and digestate, in order to save mineral fertilizer.

The FDP wants prices throughout the food supply chain to be set by the market. To that end, the antitrust authorities' abuse oversight and merger control are to be strengthened. The platform rejects political interference in their work.

The FDP wants fair prices from the farm to the supermarket. The market should set the prices. Antitrust agencies make sure big companies do not abuse their power. These agencies should become stronger. Politicians should not interfere.

According to the platform, everyone in the agricultural sector should benefit from the industry's development. It sees functioning market pricing, from the farm to the store shelf, as the precondition. The FDP therefore wants to expand oversight of abuses of market power and the review of corporate mergers. Antitrust authorities should work free of political influence.

The FDP favors a premium for cows kept on pasture that offsets part of the lower yield. The platform argues that grazing supports many ecosystems. Nature conservation and agriculture should work together as partners.

Cows on pasture give less milk than cows in a barn. But pasture is good for nature. The FDP wants to pay farmers money for this. Conservation groups and farmers should work well together.

The platform describes dairy farming as the traditional form of agriculture in Bremen and year-round indoor housing as a common result of performance pressure. A premium is meant to cover part of the yield loss from grazing and thereby strengthen both nature and farms. The FDP cites the meadow bird protection program as an example of successful cooperation. The basis should be that conservation and farming each recognize the other side's contribution.