Protest against falling prices: tractors block Aldi central warehouse

Tuesday, December 8th, 2020

Protest against falling prices
Tractors block Aldi central warehouse

Many farmers have been struggling with rapidly falling prices for some time. The anger against large discounters who pay too little for their products is growing. With hundreds of tractors, farmers across Germany are blocking the access roads to several central warehouses.

In several federal states, hundreds of farmers blocked central warehouses of the discounter Aldi in various places between Monday evening and today's Tuesday morning. In Lower Saxony there were blockade campaigns in Weyhe (district of Diepholz), Seevetal (district of Harburg), Beverstedt (district of Cuxhaven), Lingen and Hesel (district of Leer) and Rinteln (district of Schaumburg). In North Rhine-Westphalia, farmers blocked access to the Aldi warehouse in Greven (Steinfurt district) with 50 tractors. According to the police, 13 farmers with their tractors and around 40 other demonstrators also gathered in Montabaur in Rhineland-Palatinate during the night and temporarily blocked access roads.

According to a spokesman for the farmers' protest movement "Land Creates Connection" in Lower Saxony, the blockade actions were ended after Aldi made an offer to talk. A spokesman for Aldi Nord announced that there should be talks with the farmers this week. Among other things, an exchange with representatives of "Land Creates Connection", trading companies and the Federal Association of the German Food Trade is scheduled for Friday. "We will hold the talks personally and together with representatives from Aldi Süd," it said. From the farmers' point of view, it is important that aid arrives quickly on the ailing farms, said the spokesman for "Land creates connection". It is hoped from the conversation on Friday that there will be concrete suggestions on how to proceed in the short and long term.

For some time now, many farmers have been suffering from a rapid drop in producer prices. This also results from the consequences of the corona pandemic because, for example, gastronomy as an important buyer of food is currently largely failing. In the pig sector, however, the closure of the important export market China also played an important role in the fall in prices after African swine fever was detected in Germany in September. Farmers complain, however, that prices have not been reduced for end consumers, so that the food trade is enriching itself at the farmers' expense.

Fairtrades for German agriculture?

With the campaign, the farmers want to draw attention to the pricing policy of the retail trade and invite the discounters to talk.

(Photo: picture alliance / dpa)

In the past week, farmers blocked the central warehouse of Aldi competitor Lidl and Edeka and Rewe. The farmers ’anger was triggered by a letter from the major German retail chains to Chancellor Angela Merkel. In it, the top managers of the companies Edeka, Rewe, Aldi and the Schwarz Group (Lidl, Kaufland) complained about statements by Federal Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner. The CDU politician had launched a draft law with which farmers and smaller suppliers should be better protected from the price pressure of the trade giants and spoke of sometimes unfair conditions. The supermarket chains complained that Klöckner had drawn a distorted image of retail companies.

After a summit meeting last Thursday with representatives of the large food companies and the retail association with Klöckner, the Schwarz Group (Lidl, Kaufland) announced that it would provide 50 million euros through the animal welfare initiative to support farmers. The President of the German Farmers' Association, Joachim Rukwied, had described the offer as insufficient consolation. Aldi Nord announced on Sunday that it would hold further discussions with farmers' representatives as soon as possible. It could be about the idea of ​​fair trade for German agriculture or the promotion of farmers through nationwide, appropriate payment with higher quality standards.