SPD on agriculture

The SPD wants to examine whether a farm structure law requiring approval for sales of farmland and farms would be useful. The background is its concern about land concentration and purchases by investors from outside agriculture.

Farmland is getting more expensive. Often companies buy it that are not farmers. The SPD wants to look into a new law. Selling farmland would then need a permit. This should keep the land with local farmers.

In the program's view, such a law should prevent excessive land concentration, speculative price increases and the loss of regional value creation. Widely spread ownership remains the basis of the SPD's land policy. It continues to demand that the federal government hand over the not yet privatized BVVG land in the state to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. State-owned land is to keep going preferentially to farms that strengthen rural areas, such as organic farms, young farmers and farms with livestock, processing or vegetable growing.

The SPD wants the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (GAP) to remain a separate policy area with its own budget. It rejects capping or gradually reducing direct payments for large farms, on the principle that every hectare should count the same.

The EU pays farmers money for their land. The SPD wants a separate pot of money for this to stay. The EU plans to pay big farms less per area. The SPD is against that. Every piece of land should get the same amount.

Direct payments are meant to strengthen farms' competitiveness and sustainability and to stabilize incomes in rural areas. The GAP should also set financial incentives for services to nature and the climate. The program justifies its rejection of capping by noting that many farms in the state grew out of former cooperatives and are often the only local employer. In the SPD's view, limiting per-hectare payments would mean the economic end for these farms, especially under the conditions of the Mercosur agreements.

The SPD wants to focus farm subsidies on soil-friendly, precise cultivation to protect waters, soils and biodiversity. It also backs animal-welfare-friendly livestock keeping and wants to keep supporting organic farming in line with demand.

Farmers should be gentle on the soil. They should use fertilizer and pesticides precisely and sparingly. That protects water, soil and wildlife. The SPD also wants to keep supporting good animal care and organic farms.

As an example, the program cites the targeted application of fertilizer and pesticides. Pesticide use is to stay limited to what is necessary, while soil-friendly weed control should remain allowed in exceptional cases. At EU and federal level, the SPD wants to push for funding of animal-welfare-friendly husbandry and for existing premiums that favor land-based livestock farming. The legume program for regional feed will continue. Organic farming, which the program says accounts for 30 percent of farms, is to keep its support programs, and near-natural gardening will be supported.

The SPD wants to give more support to digitalization, artificial intelligence and other innovations in agriculture. Agricultural and environmental research in the state is to be secured and mid-sized plant breeders supported.

Farmers should use modern technology. For example robots and computer programs. That way they can harvest more and protect nature. The SPD also wants to keep farm research in the state.

Innovations ranging from robotics to resource-saving methods are to be supported if they combine good jobs, animal welfare, sustainability and regional value creation. The program lists research institutions such as the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, the state research institute, the Institute for Farm Animal Biology and the universities and colleges, whose potential is to be preserved. The SPD considers new breeding methods for resistant varieties necessary because of climate change. Existing biogas plants are to be upgraded for sustainable energy production.

The SPD commits to livestock farming that is tied to available land, compatible with the region and appropriate to the animals. New and converted barns for better animal welfare are to keep receiving support. To fight bird flu, the party wants to press the federal government for new vaccines.

The SPD wants farm animals to be kept well. Farmers should keep getting money for better barns. Diseases like bird flu are hard on animal keepers. The SPD wants new vaccines against bird flu.

The program refers to the Livestock Strategy 2030, which was drawn up in 2024 with the sector's involvement. Animal welfare law is to be implemented in the state together with farmers. On animal diseases such as bird flu and swine fever, the SPD highlights the state's crisis management and the role of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute on the island of Riems. At the federal level it wants to see new effective vaccines approved for preventing bird flu.

The SPD wants to preserve coastal and inland fishing as a defining part of the state. The remaining coastal fishers are to get help with infrastructure and new fishing gear, and training for the profession is to be secured. Damage caused by protected species such as seals and cormorants is to be compensated.

The SPD wants to keep fishing alive in the state. Fishers on the coast should get help. For example, for new nets that catch fewer unwanted animals. Seals and cormorants cause damage for fishers. Fishers should get money to make up for that.

The program describes how low catch quotas for herring and cod have forced many businesses to give up and says the structural change appears largely complete. The SPD wants to introduce seal monitoring because, it says, there is no sound data so far on the damage and population size of gray seals. The fishing profession is to be expandable with the additional qualification of “Sea Ranger.” The party wants to keep seeking compromises among anglers, fishers and environmental groups.