A farmer’s view: Excessive regulation threatens the future of agriculture

regulation
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My husband and I manage a farm in Rhineland-Palatinate [in Germany] with agriculture and livestock. Agriculture thinks in generations, so we, like many farmers, want at least one of our children to take over the farm later – just as we took it over from our parents. But agriculture has changed.

Is the farming profession still attractive in times when farmers are made public enemies? Can we still recommend in good conscience that our children become farmers?

Many people are now critical towards farmers, sometimes even hostile. “The farmers poison our soils and our food with pesticides,” they say. It doesn’t matter that these claims are false.

Constantly, new laws and regulations force farmers to sit down at a desk to do paperwork, but bureaucracy creates frustration instead of food, because cereal does not grow on a desk …. Agriculture nevertheless has been able to survive thanks to …. advances in breeding, machinery, better planning and expert advice.

But politics, driven by ideologies that are well-intentioned but lacking expertise, puts more and more obstacles in the way of agriculture. These policies endanger agriculture’s future.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in German. This summary was prepared with Google Translate and lightly edited for clarity.

Read full, original article: Endangered Species: The German farmers have unfortunately become the enemy

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