Linke on agriculture

The Left backs production, processing and marketing within the region and short supply chains. Direct sales are to be promoted and farmers' position in dealing with retail chains strengthened.

Food should come from the region. Farmers should be able to sell their goods directly. Then they depend less on big retail chains. Schools and canteens should use food from the region.

Municipal and state institutions such as schools, canteens and university cafeterias are to get support in using regional products permanently. The party advocates fair producer prices and wants to examine whether EU market rules allow mandatory contracts before delivery between buyers and farmers. Agricultural marketing is to be realigned, also in cooperation with other states. The platform also stands by the agricultural cooperatives, wants to promote local production of meat substitutes, and calls for good pay and co-determination for farm workers.

The Left wants agri-environmental and climate measures as well as organic farming established on one third of Thuringia's farmland. The use of pesticides such as glyphosate and harmful fertilizing practices is to decline.

A third of the fields should be farmed in an eco-friendly way. That includes organic farming. The Left wants fewer pesticides such as glyphosate. The soil should stay fertile.

The party wants to preserve biodiversity and natural resources, reduce soil erosion through more agroforestry, for example, and cut climate-damaging emissions. It aims for a circular economy in which livestock farming has its place at a scale suited to the land. Applied agricultural research and advisory services are to advance fertilizer and soil management that takes nature and climate protection into account. Farms are to move away from monocultures and receive support with the change and the investment involved.

The Left wants EU farm subsidies linked to new criteria and sees the Gemeinwohlprämie (public-good premium) as one possible route. Farmers are to earn income from environmental services, and compensation payments for disadvantaged areas are to stay.

Farmers get money from the EU. The Left wants new rules for it. Those who do something for nature and society should get more. Farmers on difficult land should keep getting extra payments.

Through the national strategic plan for the Common Agricultural Policy, environmental premiums are to rise so that part of them remains with the farm as profit. Administrative effort is to fall, and farms in low-yield areas are to be given appropriate consideration. The party stands by the compensatory allowance because more than half of Thuringia's farmland lies in disadvantaged locations and this land might otherwise fall fallow. It also calls for the proposals of the Commission on the Future of Agriculture and the Borchert Commission to be implemented with reliable funding.

The Left wants to block purchases of farmland by investors from outside agriculture. An agricultural structure law, a stronger right of first refusal for farmers, capped prices and a public land fund are meant to achieve this.

Investors are buying more and more farmland. The Left wants to stop that. Farmers should get to buy first. Land prices should have a limit. The state should also own land and lease it out.

The party's stated goal is for farmland to be widely distributed among those who work it. Tax law on the purchase of agricultural land is to be reformed. For approvals of land transactions, the platform demands full transparency on land holdings and on the ownership structures of farm companies. A strategic public land fund is to lease out land on a long-term, targeted basis, for example to young farmers or alternative farming models.

The Left favors a ban on growing genetically modified plants and wants to strengthen GMO-free regions. Plants made with new genetic engineering methods are also to remain regulated under existing genetic engineering law.

The Left does not want GM plants on the fields. The strict rules should stay for new gene methods too. The EU wants to loosen these rules. The party is against that.

The platform opposes European Commission plans to deregulate new genetic engineering techniques, because risk assessment, labeling, and rules on coexistence and liability would then be dropped. In the party's view, GMO-free food production would no longer be possible in that case. EU approval procedures are to become more transparent and give more weight to ecological and socio-economic criteria. Contamination by unapproved organisms is to be prevented in order to protect farming and beekeeping.