The German government has a Minister of the Environment, and a Minister of Agriculture. It used to be, at least ten years ago....that these two would not step on the toes of each other. In the past couple of years....things have changed. So, this negative episode arose today between the two (remember....the Agricultural guy is a CSU guy, who is Bavarian and conservative, while the environmental minister gal is a SPD figure and has a problem with numerous agricultural aspects) .
The Environmental Minister (Hendricks) said that German farmers actually handle too many animals (pork and beef in the hint) and this all relates to higher exports....using the phrase...."every Chinese fridge" has German pork.
Part of the negativity about farming also relates back to the licensing required, and regulations established over large barns (for pigs and chickens). It's not the agricultural ministry that controls that....it's the environmental ministry. So if a farmer came up with an idea to double his income in five years, but he needs to plan and build a sizeable barn to handle the added pigs.....it comes down to some paperwork and having work with various stringent rules on excess waste and such from the barn 'critters'.
It's simple to say that some farmers, especially in the southern half of Germany....are a bit peeved with the agricultural ministry. They see various opportunities to get ahead of the game....grow profits....and they have some hopes that the governments see this as a chance to make an income and return tax revenue to the pot at the end of the day.
The odds that this difficult relationship will continue with the new coalition government? It's very likely.
Course, if you were across the border into France, Poland or Czech....they love this type of German meddling with farmers because it increases the chance that their products will grow in sales, and take away business from the Germans. The SPD folks? Without much thought to it.....they probably wouldn't mind German production shrinking and tax revenue downsized.
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