The tractor protesters' show of force is having an effect: Europe's agriculture ministers are buckling in the face of massive farmer uprisings in the spring. They overturned important environmental regulations for farm owners. Germany's chief farmer Özdemir is playing an inglorious role, as he did with glyphosate - against the advice of environmental associations. The "green" politician abstains from voting. Result: Nature loses!

Farmers who draw billions from Europe's financial pots will no longer have to reserve at least four percent of their fields for fallow land, trees and flower strips in return for the windfall from the EU coffers, thus protecting the environment, protecting the climate and saving many animal and plant species from losing their habitat. The farming lobby had complained that they would lose arable land for food production as a result. Farmers have sold off much more land to developers: in Bavaria alone, around 5,000 square kilometers of agricultural land have disappeared since 1980. They have been asphalted and built on. Houses and factories grew there instead of grain, vegetables or hops - the farmers reaped a magnificent financial harvest.

Helmut Scheel, Deputy Federal Chairman of the Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP - die Naturschutzpartei), condemns such "backbone-free policies of the German Minister of Agriculture": "Concessions to the representatives of the agricultural industry are the wrong way to go. Instead of more climate and species protection, it leads directly to the sidelines." He is harsh on the minister responsible. His suggestion that the change in EU regulations would bring "economic benefits" for farmers "doesn't work at all", according to Scheel. Cem Özdemir had missed the opportunity to stand up for the preservation of the countryside as Minister of Agriculture: "He is making himself the stooge of large farmers who collect EU subsidies and do not care about nature - Özdemir doesn't care."

At European level, a reform of agricultural subsidies - after all, a third of the EU budget - is unavoidable, but the EU should support agriculture in producing in a more sustainable, ecological and climate-friendly way instead of rolling back the achievements of environmental regulations. Manuela Ripa, Member of the European Parliament for the ÖDP and ÖDP lead candidate for the European elections, said: "We must work with nature, not against it. It is not expedient to undermine the rules for nature and species protection in a fast-track procedure and without assessing the consequences. It may appease some farmers in the short term, but it won't help us in the long term. Farmers should be paid much more for environmental requirements and animal welfare instead of receiving money purely for the land."  

As a politician, kowtowing to the power of the agricultural industry is a sign of weakness. Anyone who sacrifices the protection of nature to profit interests is not a minister of agriculture, because they are not concerned with the common good, but only with the wallets of big farmers. "The ÖDP, on the other hand, strengthens rural agriculture," says Scheel, quoting the principles of his party, which has been praising the value of rural work for nature not only since the referendum on the protection of bees: it promotes organic farming and relies on small farms that look after the welfare of their animals and produce healthy food. It is also window-dressing that the Minister is selling the elimination of bureaucracy for farms with less than 10 hectares as his success. This distinguishes the ÖDP from the mendacious nature conservation policy of the "green" Minister of Agriculture: "In the conflict between "land" and "economy", Özdemir is opting for profit thinking after all." That is why the ÖDP is in favor of preserving the natural areas sacrificed by Özdemir, such as flower strips or fallow land. "We are losing far too many meadows and fields to construction machines anyway," Scheel is convinced, "the ÖDP wants to stop this sell-out of our landscape."