SPD on agriculture

The SPD wants to counter concentration in agriculture with regional processing and distribution structures. This is meant to improve farms' position against large buyers. It also calls for a ban on dumping prices and a land reform.

The SPD wants to support farms in the region. Food should more often be processed and sold nearby. This should get farmers better prices. The SPD wants to ban very low prices. The market for farmland should also get new rules.

The plan includes decentralized processing and distribution structures and regional value-creation centers. The EU directive on unfair trading practices is to be implemented effectively and extended with a ban on dumping prices. A land reform is meant to relieve farms, and farmland is to receive a protected status based on its yield and ecological value. To allow solar installations on farmland (agri-PV) on a large scale, the SPD would change building law if needed.

The SPD wants to make the sustainability standards of the German Nutrition Society (DGE) mandatory for public cafeterias and canteens in the longer term. The platform treats healthy eating as a social issue because healthy food is expensive.

The SPD wants healthier food in public cafeterias. Fixed rules should apply there. Cafeterias should buy more local and organic food. Everyone should be able to eat healthily, even with little money.

Purchasing for public catering is meant to create a growing market for regional farms and organic products. The SPD wants to promote a diet that benefits health and the climate and to anchor food policy more firmly in regions and municipalities. According to the platform, health still depends too much on income.

The SPD wants to reward farmers for services the market has not paid for so far, such as species protection or gentle soil cultivation. Sustainability rating systems are meant to make the social costs of food production visible in prices.

Farmers do a lot for nature and the environment. Often they get no money for it. The SPD wants to change that. Farmers should get a premium for this work. Cheap meat from factory farming should no longer have a price advantage.

The rating systems are to cover every stage of the value chain and allow sustainability accounting. Examples of rewarded services are species protection measures, good working conditions and gentle soil cultivation. Competitive advantages gained through lower environmental or social standards are to disappear. The SPD also wants to open up new sources of income for farms in nature conservation and landscape care.

The SPD wants to push at the federal level for a mandatory state animal welfare label covering all species. Livestock farmers are to get help converting their housing systems so they can earn an adequate income with fewer animals.

The SPD wants an animal welfare label for all kinds of animals. The label should be required. It shows how the animals were kept. Farmers should get help when they rebuild their barns. They should earn enough even with fewer animals.

The platform sees the greatest need for action in intensive livestock farming. Funding for the conversion is to follow the guidelines of the Kompetenznetzwerk Nutztierhaltung (an expert commission on livestock farming). The SPD also calls a premium conceivable for farms that reduce their herds, tied to the greenhouse gases saved.