Germany’s core farm projects still in planning phase

The start of 2023 saw the EU’s new agricultural policy come into force in Germany, alongside new animal husbandry rules. However, some of German Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir’s core projects remain in the planning phase. A year after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s social democratic SPD, the Greens, and the liberal FDP took office, an important hurdle was cleared for Green Agriculture Minister Özdemir as the new EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) entered into force on Sunday (1 January). After long negotiations between federal and state governments, and the European Commission, the country’s national strategic plan for implementing the new CAP was submitted to Brussels in the autumn of 2022 and approved by the Commission at the end of November. Particularly controversial was the question of whether environmental and climate protection rules should be temporarily relaxed in light of the Ukraine war’s impact on agricultural markets. For this year, certain exemptions from the ...