Save agriculture: make it green

by Robert B. Fishman

Agriculture should become more sustainable, more environmentally and climate-friendly. It doesn't fail because of money, rather because of the influence of lobbyists and haphazard politics.

At the end of May, negotiations on the common European agricultural policy (CAP) failed again. Every year the European Union (EU) subsidizes agriculture with around 60 billion euros. Of this, around 6,3 billion flow into Germany every year. Every EU citizen pays around 114 euros a year for this. Between 70 and 80 percent of the grants go directly to the farmers. Payment is based on the area that the farm cultivates. What the farmers do in the country does not matter. The so-called "Eco-Schemes" are the main arguments that are now being debated. These are the grants that farmers should also receive for measures to protect the climate and the environment. The European Parliament wanted to reserve at least 30% of the EU agricultural subsidies for this. The majority of agriculture ministers are against it. We need a more climate-friendly agriculture. At least a fifth to a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions are due to agricultural operations.

Externalized costs

Food is only apparently cheap in Germany. The prices at the supermarket checkout hide a large part of the cost of our food. We all pay them with our taxes, water and garbage fees and on many other bills. One reason is conventional agriculture. This over-fertilizes soils with mineral fertilizers and liquid manure, the residues of which pollute rivers, lakes and groundwater in many regions. The waterworks have to drill deeper and deeper in order to get reasonably clean drinking water. In addition, there are arable toxin residues in food, the energy required to produce artificial fertilizers, antibiotic residues from animal fattening that seep into the groundwater and many other factors that damage people and the environment. The high nitrate pollution of the groundwater alone causes damage of around ten billion euros in Germany every year.

The real cost of farming

The UN World Food Organization (FAO) adds up the ecological follow-up costs of global agriculture to around 2,1 trillion US dollars. In addition, there are social follow-up costs of around 2,7 trillion US dollars, for example for the treatment of people who have poisoned themselves with pesticides. British scientists have calculated in their “True Cost” study: For every euro that people spend on groceries in the supermarket, there would be hidden external costs of another euro.

The loss of biodiversity and the death of insects are even more expensive. In Europe alone, bees pollinate plants worth 65 billion euros.

"Organic" is actually no more expensive than "conventional"

"The study by the Sustainable Food Trust and calculations by other institutions show that most organic foods are cheaper than conventionally produced when you consider their true costs," writes the Federal Center for BZfE on its website, for example.

The advocates of the agro-food industry, on the other hand, argue that the world cannot be fed up with the yields of organic farming. That is not right. Today, animal feed or cattle, sheep or pigs graze on around 70 percent of the land used for agriculture worldwide. If one were to instead grow plant-based food on the fields suitable for this, and if mankind threw away less food (today around 1/3 of global production), organic farmers could feed mankind.

The problem: So far, no one has paid farmers the added value that they generate for biodiversity, natural cycles and for their respective region. It is difficult to calculate this in euros and cents. Hardly anyone can say exactly how much money clean water, fresh air and healthy food are worth. Regionalwert AG in Freiburg presented a process for this with the “agricultural performance accounting” last autumn. On the Website  farmers can enter their farm data. 130 key performance indicators from seven categories are recorded. As a result, the farmers learn how much added value they create, for example by training young people, creating flower strips for insects or maintaining soil fertility through careful farming.

She goes other ways Organic soil cooperative

It buys land and farms from the deposits of its members, which it leases to organic farmers. The problem: In many regions, arable land is now so expensive that smaller farms and young professionals can hardly afford it. Above all, conventional agriculture is only profitable for large farms. In 1950 there were 1,6 million farms in Germany. In 2018 there were still around 267.000. In the last ten years alone, every third dairy farmer has given up.

Wrong incentives

Many farmers would manage their land in a more sustainable, environmentally and climate-friendly way if they could earn money with it. However, only a few processors buy by far the largest part of the harvest who, due to a lack of alternatives, can only deliver their products to the large grocery chains: Edeka, Aldi, Lidl and Rewe are the largest. They fight their competition with competitive prices. The retail chains pass the price pressure on to their suppliers and those on the farmers. In April, for example, the large dairies in Westphalia paid farmers just 29,7 cents per liter. "We can't produce for that," says farmer Dennis Strothlüke in Bielefeld. That's why he joined the direct marketing cooperative Weekly market24 connected. In more and more German regions, consumers are buying online directly from farmers. A logistics company delivers the goods to the customer's doorstep the following night. They work in a similar way Market enthusiast . Here, too, consumers order online directly from farmers in their region. These then deliver on a fixed date to a transfer point, where the customers pick up their goods. The advantage for the farmers: They get significantly higher prices without consumers paying more than they would in retail. Because farmers only produce and deliver what has been ordered in advance, less is thrown away.

Only politicians can make the decisive contribution to a more sustainable agriculture: They have to limit their subsidies from taxpayers' money to environmentally and nature-friendly farming methods. Like any business, farms produce what promises them the highest profit.