What do the parties in Lower Saxony say on agriculture?

The AfD wants to improve conditions for family farms so that farmers can live on their income and invest. Requirements from the EU, the federal government and the state are to be rolled back. The party wants to support regional marketing and farm shops.

Farmers should be able to live well from their work. The AfD wants fewer rules for farmers. That applies to rules from the EU, the federal government and the state. Farmers should decide more for themselves. The AfD wants to support farm shops and regional sales.

The AfD wants to slow the loss of farmland and make land purchases by investors harder. Restrictions on selling agricultural land should also cover purchases of company shares. It rejects rezoning fields as nature conservation offset areas.

The AfD wants to keep farmland for farmers. Big investors should not be able to buy farmland so easily. This should also apply when they buy shares in companies. Fields should not become nature reserves just because something is built elsewhere.

The AfD wants a high level of food self-sufficiency and wants farmland used mainly to produce food. The requirement to set aside four percent of farmland should be dropped immediately. It rejects shifting EU farm money away from direct payments.

The AfD wants Germany to grow more of its own food. Fields should mainly be used for food. EU rules make farmers leave 4 percent of their land unused. The AfD wants to end this rule right away. Farmers should keep getting their EU money directly.

The AfD wants to change the tightened fertilizer rules immediately so that crops can be fertilized according to their needs. The boundaries of nitrate-polluted areas and the network of monitoring sites should be redesigned.

The AfD wants to change the strict rules on fertilizer. Farmers should be able to give plants as much fertilizer as the plants need. The state should measure nitrate in groundwater more exactly. Nitrate is a substance that can get from fertilizer into water.

The AfD wants to prop up pork prices with state aid for storage and to introduce an origin label. Dairy farms should get relief on costs, and small dairies should be protected from market concentration.

The AfD wants to help farmers with pigs and cows. The state should pay for storing pork. This should stop the price from falling further. Labels should show if the meat comes fully from Germany. Small dairies should stay in business.

The CDU wants to develop a “social contract for agriculture” and base farm policy on incentives and planning certainty. Farmers are to receive support while being relieved of rules the platform describes as impractical and bureaucratic. The platform names securing the population's food supply as the most important goal.

The CDU wants farmers and society to agree on firm goals for farming. Farmers should get money for good work. There should be less paperwork. Farmers should be able to plan far ahead.

The CDU wants the set-aside of four percent of arable land required under EU farm policy to be permanently suspended from 2023. It argues that supplying people with food takes priority in the current situation.

The EU says farmers must leave part of their fields unused. They get no money for this. The CDU wants to stop this rule for good. It says making enough food is more important right now.

The CDU commits to livestock farming and wants to implement the Borchert Commission's recommendations for better animal welfare. The extra costs are to be covered by a permanent, mandatory animal welfare levy and by investment aid. A federal animal welfare law is meant to give farms reliable planning.

The CDU wants animals in barns to live better. That costs farmers more money. So there should be an animal welfare levy. That is a fixed payment that is required. Farmers should also get money to rebuild their barns.

The CDU wants to introduce a Lower Saxony label that bindingly marks how animals were kept and where regional products come from. Animal transports are to be kept short, regional slaughterhouses supported, and more regional food used in public cafeterias.

The CDU wants a label for food from Lower Saxony. It shows where a product comes from and how the animals lived. Animals should only travel short distances to the slaughterhouse. Public and school cafeterias should serve more food from the region.

The CDU wants to keep strengthening organic farming because, in its view, it can advance nature and species conservation. Organic farms are to be given separate consideration in funding programs, and advice on converting to organic is to be expanded.

The CDU wants to keep supporting organic farmers. Organic farms should get their own funding. Farmers who want to switch to organic should get more advice. One university should get a professor for organic farming.

The CDU wants new plant breeding methods to be approved and agricultural research at universities to be strengthened. According to the platform, farming should be based on scientific findings and share in technical progress. This also includes digitalizing farms and the administration.

The CDU wants to allow new ways of breeding plants. Research on farming should get more support. Advisers should help farmers with digital technology. Government offices should share data digitally.

The CDU wants to prevent fields and meadows from becoming objects of speculation and to change land law accordingly. Land is to remain available to family farms and forestry businesses. At the same time, the platform affirms private ownership of land.

Some people buy farmland only to make money from it. The CDU wants to stop that. It wants to change the laws on land for this. Family farms should be able to keep their land. Forest owners should also get more support.

The CDU wants to keep fishing in Lower Saxony competitive and sustainable at the same time. To that end, it plans to secure fishing grounds, protect fish stocks from predators, and preserve training and research facilities.

The CDU wants to help fishers in Lower Saxony. They should keep enough places to fish. Fish should be better protected from animals that eat them. People who fish as a hobby should get support too.

The Greens want farm subsidies to be paid for environmental and animal welfare services rather than as flat per-hectare payments. In the long run they aim for a common-good premium and a reorientation of EU agricultural policy.

Today farmers get money mostly based on how much land they have. The Greens want to change that. Money should go to protecting nature and animals. The state should use its own support programs for this. Hedges and strips along field edges should also be protected.

The Greens want to secure food supplies globally by strengthening regional agricultural markets in every part of the world. To that end, meat exports should fall, food speculation should be curbed, and the EU's biofuel blending mandate should be dropped.

Poor countries face hunger. The Greens want to support farmers there. Germany should sell less meat to these countries. Grain should no longer end up in fuel tanks. So the rule to mix biofuel into gasoline and diesel should end.

The Greens want to substantially reduce nitrous oxide and methane emissions from farming. This is to be achieved by using less nitrogen fertilizer, ending factory farming, stopping the plowing of peatland soils, and promoting humus build-up and organic farming.

Farming releases a lot of greenhouse gases. The Greens want to cut them sharply. Farmers should use less fertilizer. Factory farming should end. Peatland should no longer be plowed for crops. Organic farms should get more support.

The Greens want to help farms adjust to the consequences of climate change. The focus is on adapted water management, erosion protection and drought-tolerant crops.

Climate change brings drought and heavy rain. This hits farmers. The Greens want to help them. Water should stay on the fields. Farmers should irrigate in a water-saving way. Crops should cope better with dry weather.

The Greens want to link the number of animals kept to the available land and to lower it, especially in western Lower Saxony. Farms are to get help reducing herds, converting barns for better animal welfare, and voluntarily leaving livestock farming.

Some areas have very many farm animals. This creates too much manure for the fields. The Greens want fewer animals per area of land. Farmers get help if they keep fewer animals. They also get help for better barns. Big livestock farms should pay more into the animal disease fund.

The Greens want to greatly reduce the use of pesticides in Lower Saxony and to draw up the reduction strategy agreed in the Niedersächsischer Weg (a state agreement on nature conservation). At the federal level they push for a pesticide levy, and in the EU for stricter approvals.

Farmers use pesticides. These are chemicals against pests and weeds. Traces of them turn up in drinking water. The Greens want far fewer pesticides. They will make a plan for Lower Saxony. People who use pesticides should pay a fee.

The Greens want to move enforcement of environmental rules such as fertilizer and pesticide law from the Chamber of Agriculture to another state authority. Fees for food and feed inspections are to be revised to ease the burden on small craft businesses.

Today the Chamber of Agriculture checks whether farmers follow environmental rules. But the chamber also speaks for farmers. The Greens want to separate this. Another authority should do the checks. Small businesses should pay lower fees for inspections.

The Greens want to preserve grassland in Lower Saxony and introduce a grazing premium for that purpose. The platform argues that grassland stores carbon, protects water from phosphate and matters for biodiversity.

The Greens want to keep meadows and pastures. Farmers should get money when their animals graze outside. Meadows are good for the climate and for many animals.

The Greens want an agricultural structure law that gives local farms a strong right of first refusal on farmland over non-farming investors, along with a price brake. In the platform's view, active farmers are currently losing out to financial investors on the land market.

Farmland keeps getting more expensive. Investors buy land too. The Greens want a new law. Local farmers should get to buy land first. Prices should stop rising so fast.

The Greens want to raise the share of organic farming from 5.2 percent today to at least ten percent by 2025 and at least 15 percent by 2030. The platform treats organic farming as its model because it is said to protect soil, groundwater, species and the climate and to create rural jobs.

The Greens want more organic farming. Today it is about 5 percent. By 2030 it should be at least 15 percent. Organic farmers use no artificial fertilizers or pesticides. The state should serve organic food in its cafeterias.

The Greens want Lower Saxony to remain a region where no genetically modified crops are grown. They reject public funding for commercial research on agricultural genetic engineering.

The Greens want no genetically modified crops on the fields. That should stay as it is today. The state should not pay for such research by companies. Farmers should grow more protein-rich feed at home.

The Greens want to keep supporting fish farming in aquaculture but make it more ecological. EU fisheries funds are to go specifically to sustainable and innovative facilities.

Many fish come from fish farms. The Greens want these farms to be better for nature. The water should stay clean. The fish should have more room. EU money should help with that.

The Greens want to strengthen coastal fishing with a political strategy and keep tying fisheries funding to high environmental standards. Fish stocks are to be secured and rebuilt, and the party wants to push for effective marine protection at the federal level.

The Greens want to help fishers on the coast. They should fish in a gentle way. Shrimp should be peeled locally and not in Morocco. Small harbors should stay reachable. The sea should be better protected.

The Greens want to lower antibiotic use in livestock farming and move oversight back to the state level. Reserve antibiotics are to be banned in fattening because the platform sees resistant germs as a danger to human health.

Fattened animals get a lot of antibiotics. These are drugs against bacteria. That makes them work less well for people. The Greens want less of them in barns. The state should check this itself. Especially important antibiotics should be banned for fattening.

The Greens want to advise cafeterias on using more organic products and launch a state program for school meals. Schools and daycare centers would offer more plant-based food. A state nutrition strategy is to be put into practice.

Many people eat in a cafeteria every day. The Greens want more organic food there. Cafeterias should get advice for this. The state should support good food in schools. Schools and daycare centers should offer more plant-based food.

The Greens want less food to be thrown away, from harvest to store. They support federal and EU initiatives to decriminalize dumpster diving and to revise the best-before date.

A lot of food ends up in the trash. The Greens want to change that. Crooked vegetables should be sold too. Dumpster diving means taking food from store trash bins. This should no longer be a crime.

The SPD wants to put the agreement between farmers, conservation groups and politics for more species protection, known as the Niedersächsischer Weg (Lower Saxony Way), into practice across the state and fund it for the long term. The dialogue format is to be extended to more topics.

In Lower Saxony, farmers, conservation groups and politics made a deal for more species protection. It is called the Niedersächsischer Weg. The SPD wants to keep it going and pay for it long term. New topics should be added.

The SPD wants more fairness and transparency in the food chain so that producers and workers earn an adequate income. In the program's view, food retailers have had too much control over prices so far.

The SPD thinks supermarkets have too much power over prices. Farmers should get more money for their products. Shoppers should see where food comes from. Harvest workers and slaughterhouse workers should be treated fairly.

The SPD wants to raise the share of organic farming to 15 percent by 2030 and promote regional direct marketing. This is meant to create local economic value and strengthen rural areas.

There should be more organic farms. By 2030 they should make up 15 percent of farming. Farmers should find it easier to sell their goods directly in the region. There should be a bonus for cattle kept on pasture.

The SPD wants to advance digital technology in agriculture because it saves resources and benefits the environment and climate. At the same time it wants to prevent a few providers from controlling the data and small farms from being overwhelmed.

The SPD wants to support digital technology on farms. This saves water and fertilizer. Farmers should be allowed to use their own data. Small farms should get advice.