As of: March 30, 2024, 8:02 a.m
By: Stefanie Fischhaber
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Green Bundestag member Karl Bär (M.) discussed reducing bureaucracy in agriculture with vegetable farmers Hannah and Fritz von Stein. © Thomas Plettenberg
During a site visit to the Waakirchen vegetable garden, Green MP Karl Bär spoke about bureaucracy. He wants to gather impressions on a tour through the voting district.
District
- The peak of the farmers' protests is over, but the farmers' demands continue to resonate. One of them: reducing bureaucracy. The Green Bundestag member Karl Bär took the topic as an opportunity for a “bureaucratic tour” through the constituency of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen and Miesbach and stopped at several companies. “I want to look at the bureaucracy in practice,” explained the chairman of the Committee for Food and Agriculture. The aim is to find ways in which bureaucracy can be specifically reduced. That's why the Holzkirchner was shown papers, folders and computer programs on site.
Green MP Bär visits farms
The first stop was a conventional dairy farm in Icking (Bad Tölz-Wolfrathsausen district). There, farmer Ruth-Maria Frech talked about her problems with the animal drug database HI-Tier. “Every one of my 50 cows is registered there, I enter everything there,” she explained to the MP. And yet every six months she is asked to check and confirm the data individually. “Another thing to think about.”
Bär was confronted with a little less bureaucracy at his second stop, the Waakirchen vegetable garden. But the farmers Hannah and Fritz von Stein, who took over the organic farm last year, didn't have to look far to find an example of excessive bureaucracy.
Bureaucracy in agriculture: Complicated applications and long waiting times
The vegetable garden participates in the school fruit program, an EU funding measure with the aim of providing students with regional fruit and vegetables. “It takes at least six months from the first delivery until the money is paid out,” said Hannah von Stein. The reason for this is the numerous delivery notes and applications that have to be submitted. The vegetable farmers therefore have to make a long advance payment. Bär showed understanding: “It wouldn’t hurt if an application step were eliminated.”
But the operators are lucky: With a greenhouse of 280 square meters and 3,000 square meters of outdoor space, the company falls through the cracks when it comes to many requirements, such as determining fertilizer requirements. Nevertheless, the career changers from the Allgäu had to deal with a lot of bureaucracy, especially when starting up the business. “If I have a personal contact, I can cope better with the requirements,” explained the 42-year-old.
Bär wants to experience bureaucracy in practice
Bär took this insight with him from his meeting with the vegetable farmers: “Where there is a human involved, it works better.” One problem, however, is that the authorities are often not well equipped. During his on-site visits, he learned that farmers often had other problems than they initially thought, for example with the drug database or school fruit promotion. The result is often treated differently in practice than in parliament. The Green MP sees the meetings primarily as a research assignment. “I want to find out what the legal basis for this is,” he said, for example, referring to the drug database.
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The Steins had another message for the politician: “It’s good that small-scale agriculture is not yet so restricted by bureaucratic processes.” Bär visited two other companies in the district to gain experience outside of agriculture. In the Leitzachmühle near Miesbach and in the Freudenberg house on Schliersee, he got an idea of the bureaucratic challenges along the value chain.