News Farmland
Germany stops selling agricultural land
The German federal government stops selling agricultural land. This decision is welcomed by Susanna Karawanskij, the Minister of Agriculture of the German federal state. "The privatization stop is the right step", the politician of Die Linke informed the news agency Deutschen Presse-Agentur (DPA) on Sunday 29 May.
"The sale of public agricultural land in the East German Länder has been a strong price driver in the agricultural land market in recent years." The sales freeze puts an end to the policy of the last three decades to privatize agriculture. The federal government wants to lease the remaining land owned by the government to mainly organic farmers. Karawanskij criticizes this condition, because it puts mainstream companies at a disadvantage. She therefore wants both conventional and organic companies to have equal access to this land.
a lot of rent
The agricultural companies in Thuringia own relatively little land. Only 24% of agricultural land is owned by agricultural companies and 76% is leased. As a result, the share of ownership has increased. In 2010 there was still 82% lease and at the time of reunification it was still 88%. Thuringia remains the state with the highest percentage of leased land in Germany. The national average is 59%. The average land price in Thuringia has risen in ten years from around €5.100 to €13.350 per hectare in 2020. "Agricultural land should not be a commodity for speculation, because fertile land is a limited, non-renewable resource," Karawanskij told DPA. "Our farmers need stable land prices to be able to pay for their most important production factor on their own economic strength."
Jurphaas Lugtenburg
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