Klöckner a year in office: no forced

When it took office a year ago, the agriculture Minister, Klöckner, animal welfare and agriculture, promising to bring closer together. That it relies primarily on a voluntary basis, is not always good.

By Claudia Plaß, ARD-capital Studio

if you Ask consumers, what are your expectations for the agriculture, animal welfare and environmental protection are always top of the list. Both of these issues are also specified in the coalition agreement. Sustainable agriculture and nature are not opposites, it means there about.

In her speech a year ago, the departure is also Minister of agriculture, Julia Klöckner left no room for doubt. "Our three main themes are animal welfare, nutrition, education, and competitiveness of our agriculture." So the mass Killing of male day-old, for example, makes Chicks for outrage. Union and the SPD have stated that until the autumn of this year, the conclusion should be. "We are, in my opinion, on the verge of, that we can dispense with the chick shredding", the CDU-politician in the last spring confident.

The farmer's Association would like to stun the pig before the Spay preferably locally.

Klöckner relies on voluntary self-commitments

This should also apply to the protection of Bees: What the bee too bad, going away from the market, she said. As particularly harmful to some pesticides used in agriculture, so-called Neonicotinoids apply. "That's why I'm going to agree to in Brussels, the ban on use of these agents in a free country," promised the Minister, just before the EU States voted for a ban of three bee-harmful Neonicotinoids. The use of insect poisons was limited to greenhouses.

environmentalists are calling for a complete ban of Neonicotinoids. Such a ban is on the horizon but as little as a the end of the chick killing. Also, a quick exit from the controversial Piglet castration without anaesthesia is not in sight.

Instead, the agriculture and food Minister is focusing its operations mainly on voluntary self to apply the obligations of the industry - for example, when it comes to less food waste, or to process less sugar, salt and fat in ready-made products. A sugar tax, as other countries have introduced, rejects you. "A tax is not an end in itself", she argues.

a Lot of criticism Klöckner reaped for the state's animal welfare Label: only volunteering, only for pigs, and only from 2020 onwards. Too little, too late, complained about the Greens. Increasingly, Minister to each other device, also with the coalition partners.