German Minister of Agriculture is a butcher and supports the group stable

Rainer's appointment will certainly feel like a moral victory for the German meat sector. With him as a minister at the Department of Agriculture, they will get someone who knows this world inside out. Rainer comes from a farm and is a certified butcher. In Germany, this is a real craft - even more so than in our country. In the late 80s, he took over his parents' business. The butcher's shop in Haibach, Bavaria, where he comes from, is now run by his son.

Dream candidate
Rainer is an experienced politician. From 1996 to 2014 he was mayor of his hometown. After that he entered the Bundestag for the CDU/CSU. Now he is stepping forward in the newly forged coalition between his party and the SPD as the new Minister of Agriculture of Germany. Rainer was not the top favorite, by the way. Initially Günther Felßner, chairman of the Bavarian Farmers' Union, was in the picture. He declined the honor after animal rights activists visited his farm. Other candidates also did not bite, after which Rainer came into the picture. German media called his appointment surprising, but only positive reactions came from the German agricultural sector. Felßner calls him 'a 'Dream candidate'. 

Attention to the countryside
Rainer's personal campaign was mainly intended to make the CDU/CSU as big as possible and to take up a seat in the Bundestag himself. During previous elections, he had already handed out free cans of sausage, which attracted many votes. He is convinced of his own abilities and openly stated in interviews before the elections that he would vote for himself. In these interviews, he also said that he wanted to fight for a reliable government with an honest and realistic policy, especially for the people in the German countryside. According to him, the previous coalition paid little attention to this.

group stable
A striking position of Rainer is that he wants to make a strong case for the group stable. If it were up to him, it would remain possible for German dairy farmers to keep cows in this way. The previous Minister of Agriculture wanted to ban this from 2028. This led to a lot of resistance, especially in Bavaria, because many relatively small dairy farms still work with this housing system. "A ban is not on the agenda for the time being," Rainer promises in his first interview. 

An interesting theme will be how the incoming Minister of Agriculture views the German meat tax, which Özdemir is a great supporter of and has made policy on several occasions. As a certified butcher, Rainer's position could also deviate 180 degrees from his predecessor.