SPD on agriculture

The SPD wants to preserve an agriculture shaped by owner-run family farms and counter the decline of small farms. It wants to support young farmers and prevent farmland from accumulating in the hands of large operations and corporations from outside agriculture.

The SPD wants to keep small and mid-sized farms. Young farmers should get help. Big companies should not buy up more and more farmland. The SPD says farmland belongs in farmers' hands.

Services that society demands from farms are to be paid for appropriately. Support for new farmers, attractive training and help with farm handovers are meant to lower the average age of farm managers and secure the mid-sized structure. A long-term plan is to give farms planning certainty so that investments in sustainability pay off. Against land concentration and speculation, the SPD relies on changed subsidy rules, tax programs and enforcement of existing laws. For dairy farmers it calls for EU-level tools to stabilize the milk price.

The SPD wants at least 30 percent of Bavaria's farmland to be farmed organically by 2030. Subsidies are to flow less as flat per-area payments and more as rewards for services to nature and the common good.

The SPD wants more organic farming in Bavaria. By 2030 it should cover at least 30 percent of farmland. Farmers who do more for nature should get more money. State cafeterias should mostly buy organic food from the region.

Besides higher support for farms, the platform plans more education, more research and advice, and statewide marketing support for Bavarian organic products. The state is to give preference to regional organic goods for its cafeterias. Agri-environmental measures are to be expanded to counter blanket per-area subsidies. The SPD wants considerably more nature conservation land and advocates pesticide-free farming. Soils are to be protected from pollutants and spared through humus building and other methods such as perennial energy crops.

The SPD advocates species-appropriate livestock farming and wants to give more support to alternative husbandry methods. Husbandry method and origin are to be labeled on a mandatory basis so that farms benefit from the quality of their products.

The SPD wants farm animals to live better. Products should show how and where the animal lived. Animals should only be transported short distances. Animal testing in research should stop as far as possible.

The platform cites straw-bedded pig farming as an example of alternative husbandry. Legal requirements for all farm animals are to be reviewed and monitored, and violations penalized. Transport routes are to stay short throughout the animal's life, with the aim of keeping value creation in Bavarian food production regional. The SPD wants to prevent animal testing in research as far as possible and advance alternatives.

The SPD wants to create minimum standards for agricultural workers and penalize farms that exploit their labor. It also wants to protect local farms from unfair trading practices and dumping prices.

The SPD wants to protect people who work on farms. Farms that exploit workers should get less subsidy money. Farmers themselves should also be protected. Retailers should not be allowed to demand dumping prices. These are prices that are unfairly low.

The minimum standards are to be enforced through social conditionality, meaning EU farm payments are tied to compliance with labor and social rules. Violations are to bring sanctions and cuts in EU subsidies. The SPD wants to implement the European directive on unfair trading practices effectively. The directive is also to be extended with a ban on dumping prices.