Challenges for farmers: weather, bureaucracy and shortage of skilled workers!

Challenges for farmers: weather, bureaucracy and shortage of skilled workers!

On February 2, 2025, a joint winter meeting of the agricultural local associations Halver and Kierspe took place, led by Reiner Grafe from Kierspe. The participants of the meeting devoted themselves to the most important topics in the industry and looked back on the past year. The regulations were discussed twice due to the organizational separation of the two clubs, which enabled an overview of the annual review, the cash report and the discharge of the board members.

A central point of the discussion was the identification of weather and bureaucracy as the main problems of farmers. Last year the conditions were shaped by excessive moisture, while the bureaucracy was still presented as a constant obstacle. Despite these challenges, farmers expressed satisfaction with the current milk prices, while they critically looked at increasing wage and electricity costs.

shortage of skilled workers and age structure

Thomas Apelt from Halver spoke to a serious shortage of skilled workers, which is reinforced by the retirement of the "Boomer" generation. According to current data, around 876,000 workers in agriculture were employed from March 2022 to February 2023, which is a decline of 62,000 compared to the 2020 agricultural count, as Destatis.de reported. This reflects a loss of 32,000 seasonal workers and 36,000 family workers. The age structure of employed people in agriculture is also higher compared to the total population.

Another important aspect was addressed by district manager Melanie Fischer, who reported on the reforestation of calamity areas. These areas were damaged by the bark beetle and 3000 plants must be set per hectare, with the focus on deciduous trees. At the same time, reforestation measures for spruces, supported by funding from North Rhine-Westphalia, are also running for the repair of paths that were damaged by clearing work and floods.

economic challenges and new possibilities

In another point, Nikola Galla, managing director of the Agricultural District Association of Märkischer Kreis, informed about health insurance contributions and court regulations, while Rainer Hahn from the Chamber of Agriculture was present to support the concerns of farmers. Ulrich Brinkmann, chairman of the district association, emphasized the importance of lobbying the association and its presence in social media, including TikTok, to address younger target groups.

A great interest in photovoltaic topics was also found. In Halver, ten hectares of land for open space systems have been approved. However, some farmers expressed concerns that photovoltaic systems could compete with agricultural use in the future. These concerns also include the question of whether areas can be used as arable land again after the lease time and why calamity areas are not included in the use.

The agricultural industry faces a variety of challenges, including a decline in workers, increasing bureaucratic requirements and the need to adapt to the changes due to climate change and technological developments. A study, initiated by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, underlines the urgency to improve the training and qualification of workers in agriculture, since the need for higher qualified workers will increase in the future, such as bmel.de emphasized.

Overall, the winter assembly of the agricultural local associations shows Halver and Kierspe the complexity of the challenges that the industry must cope with currently and in the future.