Distler misses the appreciation of politics for the farmers

The tasks of daily work from the post-war period to the times of globalization and now digitization have changed for the Bavarian Farmers’ Association (BBV). What has remained is that the BBV represents the interests of the profession and has been the mouthpiece of agriculture for 75 years. If the structural change had been mastered before the turn of the millennium, farmers, gardeners and winemakers had to face great challenges in recent years and the Kitzingen BBV department head Wilfried Distler knows “that the concerns and concerns of farmers have always been broadly diversified”.

The BBV was launched in 1945, and Lower Franconia Georg Gehring from Oberspiesheim and Georg Kropp from Wrzburg were among the founding members. A year later, the local, district and district associations were formed; the district association has been extending to the district boundary since the territorial reform in 1972. Today, the district association has 2,200 members covering around 40,000 hectares of agricultural land, including viticulture, fruit growing and horticulture. If the BBV offered its members the service of tax advice for decades, the tax advice has long been outsourced to subsidiaries.

The classic need for advice includes, in addition to subject-specific matters, advice in many other areas. “Consultations are becoming more and more special, because social change can also be felt in middle-class families,” explains Wilfried Distler, describing the situation and addressing the modern problem of business succession. He sees it as a luxury problem if owners of healthy hips have three children and no one wants to take over the farm. “We can give good help and moderate between generations to support the smoothest possible transfer of operations,” says the Nenzenheimer.

Topics such as route planning for the Sdlink electricity highway, the consequences of the “Save the Bees” referendum or the EU Green Deal and the Bavarian government’s objectives keep the BBV busy. Accordingly, the proportion of organically cultivated land is to be increased to 30 percent. However, sales problems from organic dairies and possible price dicdate from Aldi & Co. would speak against it, and organic rail is no longer a niche.

Quality food

“The whole thing can only work if the consumer is also willing to spend more money on high-quality food when shopping,” the BBV man points out. Because of the restrictions as a result of the Corona crisis, the BBV helped its members, because growers and winegrowers in particular have massive problems this year because the seasonal workers from Eastern Europe were not allowed to enter the country in required numbers.

“The members are grateful to us that the German Farmers’ Association, in cooperation with the Federal Police and the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Agriculture, succeeded in allowing workers from Romania to fly in,” said Wilfried Distler.

The graduate agricultural engineer (FH) is annoyed by the current amendment to the Dngeschutzverordnung (German Protection Ordinance), which has been in effect since 2017, because it has been whipped through by the federal government and the farmers, winegrowers and gardeners have been confronted with accomplished facts. “You can see that agriculture doesn’t get the necessary appreciation from politics,” says the 44-year-old, who complains about the pressure from the EU and society on the farmers.

Red zone

This means that our entire district is a red zone because of the nitrate pollution in the groundwater, and farmers face difficult problems with the sludge. There is also a risk of a large-scale malnutrition of agricultural plants because a flat 20 percent less fertilizer should be used.

“We are a corporation under public law and well positioned as a service provider for our members,” says Wilfried Distler, who sees the BBV as well networked with the Office for Agriculture and the District and with good links to politicians. He tells the big politicians to consider whether it should be the case that farmers are treated and treated poorly, as in the Dn Protection Act. Basically, he is in a positive mood about the future of agriculture and the entire green sector, since food production is needed by society. In addition, many young and highly trained farmers would join the farms and produce high quality food.

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• Kitzingen

• Hartmut Hess

• Aldi group

• Farmers’ associations

• Bavarian Farmers’ Association

• Federal Police

• German farmers’ association

• European Union

• Farmers and farmers

• Agriculture

• Ministries of Agriculture

• Agricultural office

• Fruit growing

• Government agencies of the Federal Republic of Germany

• SDlink

• Weingrtner

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