Corona pandemic, war in Ukraine and inflation: Many farmers are struggling to survive in the face of the crises. Many of them will not make it, predicts farmer and federal chairman of the working group for rural agriculture (AbL) Martin Schulz in an interview with FOCUS Online.
Martin Schulz has 900 fattening pigs, which have never eaten as expensively as they have since the war in Ukraine. But the explosion in feed costs is not the only problem. The national chairman of the AbL on a battered industry and possible measures to get it back on its feet.
FOCUS Online: It is said that agriculture has never experienced a crisis like the current one. They have 900 fattening pigs. Be specific: What kind of problems are we talking about exactly?
Martin Schulz: About the fact that I’m currently making a mess of every animal that goes to the slaughterhouse. A piglet in the purchase costs 100 €. There are also 140 € for feed and costs for straw, animal losses and the veterinarian. But we only get 250 euros from the customer. It would have to be €280 to €300 for me to be able to say: the job was worth it.
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If you come into the stable in the morning to be fed in such a situation: can you still see the animal at all? Or do you mainly see the schnitzel or the chops, which are no longer worth it?
Schulz: The animals are the last ones that can do anything for development. Is everyone eating well? Is there one in the corner and can’t get to the trough? Then I measure the temperature and at that moment I actually have nothing else in mind than the well-being of the animal. Not in the way the city dweller might imagine when thinking about dealing with a pet. For me, animal welfare is a question of professional ethics. When I did my apprenticeship more than 20 years ago, we learned to counter the cost pressure with efficiency. Everything had to become cheaper in agriculture. But do you know what that leads to when pigs are crammed into ever smaller spaces? They bite each other’s tails off. Many farmers then dock them as a precaution. A typical pattern: short-term intervention instead of lasting change. When I took over the farm from my father, it was clear: the concrete floor will come out, the animals will go on straw. And they get more space.
And that is now taking revenge in the crisis, where everything is becoming more expensive: the straw, the feed, which the animals probably need more of when they run out more, and also the energy costs?
Schulz: In fact, most conventional pig farmers are even worse off. We survived the corona crisis much better because our sales did not collapse. Conventional livestock farmers are now entering their third year with no profits from pig farming.
What do you do differently from your colleagues?
Schulz: Although we are also a conventional program, we have the strictest guidelines in animal husbandry. We do not allow slatted floors and cattle and sheep are required to graze. We also prescribe domestic feed, so that it must come 100% from our own region. This is certainly not the problem with grain, but with protein feed we rely on local peas and beans from regional cultivation instead of soy from overseas or from Eastern Europe.
Martin Schulz is a part-time national chairman of the “Working Group on Farming” (AbL) and runs a conventional pig farm with 900 fattening pigs in Wendland.
So the sharp rise in feed prices isn’t your biggest problem at the moment?
Schulz: Let’s put it this way: without my own grain, I would have an even bigger problem. But even so it is difficult, because the crisis is also having an impact on self-cultivation. Fertilizer, for example, has quadrupled in price. And when the grain market is tense worldwide, this naturally also affects the domestic grain price. It has never been as high as it is now, we are now at €35 per 100 kilos. Anyone who thought during the Corona crisis that it couldn’t get any worse was unfortunately wrong.
It may be that it’s the naive city dweller who asks: Would going back to the good old days be the solution? Is agriculture also so prone to crises because we are now often dealing with the pressure you described and because many farms are now highly specialized high-performance businesses?
Schulz: Your consideration is absolutely justified. The broader a farm is, the more crisis-proof it is, you can put it that way. Farms used to be colourful. There were pigs, cows, a few chickens and there was farming. But you probably won’t turn the wheel back. Nevertheless, I am very happy to have a broader base and to close circuits. In addition to the pigs and the crops, I also have a biogas plant that, in addition to corn, gas and beets, processes almost 5,000 tons of manure into electricity and heat. The electricity is fed into the grid and the heat is sold to 160 households in the village. However, this also required investments of 5 million euros. As for the feed, I would love to grow it all myself, 100 percent. Unfortunately, goodwill alone is not enough. It’s not that easy to get ashore.
Hand on heart: Are the war in Ukraine or Corona – with the numerous absences of infected employees in the slaughterhouses – really the causes of the crisis in agriculture? Or are we not rather seeing various symptoms of a system that has been ailing for a long time?
Schulz: The problem is indeed very complex and when I am asked about possible solutions, I always come back to a competence network that is headed by the former Minister of Agriculture Jochen Borchert and that is also named after him: the Borchert Commission. It has existed since 2019 and is committed to restructuring livestock farming in Germany because it does not consider it sustainable. Unfortunately, numerous studies have shown that consumers demand animal welfare, but are ultimately not willing to pay the necessary price for it. That is why the commission proposes that the state pays premiums to animal keepers for the additional effort they put into animal welfare…
But animal welfare is very important to most consumers, isn’t it?
Schulz: On the one hand. Right now, when inflation is at its highest level in 40 years, people are saving on groceries again. We all like to talk about how conscious we shop and eat. We have been discussing animal welfare for 25 years now. But the fact is: at least 95% of agriculture is running as it always has.
Could the crisis even have something good for agriculture in the longer term, because urgently needed processes are being pushed? Is now the right time for fundamental changes?
Schulz: From my point of view, the time has already passed. As I said, the bitter truth is that for many companies it is most likely already too late.
Shouldn’t the topic be thought even further? Down with consumption overall, eat less meat above all?
Schulz: In principle you are right, that would be it and that’s how it used to be. The good old Sunday roast was something special, a piece of wealth. And then we wanted prosperity every day and with that came the mass with all the well-known losses, both in terms of quality and among the producers. No, that was and is not a good development per se, viewed from a distance. But look, I’m a farmer. In doing so, of course, I always automatically take on the perspective of those who are at the end of the chain. I then think of my cousin, for example, who is a conventional piglet producer. He hasn’t made any money from his sows for two years now, worse still, he’s losing money from it every day. My cousin is a really fine guy and I think he did everything right as far as he could. It just wouldn’t be fair to say: it’s your own fault, you used the wrong standards.
