Budget requests: Environmental education, animal welfare and agriculture

Green parliamentary group presents budget proposals for the next roundtable meeting

"In the coming budget, we would like to focus on environmental education, animal welfare and agriculture," said Rainer Vogel, spokesperson for agricultural policy for the Green Group in the district parliament, explaining three of his group's ten motions for the next district parliament meeting: “We want to achieve this through initiatives in the area of the Veterinary Office, but also by increasing funding for the “Agriculture Learning Field” and a feasibility study for a regional slaughterhouse.”

The ‘Agriculture Learning Field’ ensures that school groups and pre-school groups gain insight into the production of their food through visits to farms in the MKK: "This food and environmental education is important from an early age to raise awareness of the origin of regionally produced food and the work behind it," says Vogel. After all, the production of regional and high-quality food must be brought back to the forefront. “The budget earmarked is not sufficient for broad information to be given to pupils and young people. We therefore call for this to be increased by 20,000 euros from the 2022 budget onwards. This enables around 150 more farm visits per year." In addition, the circle should "more focus on the important work of farmers through a publicity campaign, for example in the context of the eco-model region."

At the last roundtable meeting, the Main-Kinzig district decided to set up a roundtable on regional slaughter: ‘After the closure of the slaughterhouse in Büdingen, a central slaughterhouse for butchers and direct marketers from the Main-Kinzig district has disappeared.’ This greatly increases the transport route of slaughter animals: "The possibility of unloading during animal transport checks, for example after checks on the motorway, is also completely eliminated," said the agricultural policy spokesman. With a request, the district parliamentary group has already made the problem clear: ‘We therefore demand that the district allocates the necessary resources to carry out a feasibility study in the budget and thus examines whether and under which measures a regional slaughterhouse can be operated.’ The preservation or construction of a joint slaughterhouse of the eco-model regions of Main-Kinzig and Wetterau should be examined. At the same time, the Greens call for the round table to be convened as soon as possible and also for a report to be submitted to the Committee on Agriculture: “This issue needs to be addressed in a timely manner.”

In addition to the necessary educational work and a regional slaughterhouse, animal welfare also includes the necessary checks by the veterinary office: "According to the Regierungspräsidium Darmstadt, only around 32 percent of the necessary checks in this area are currently being carried out," says Vogel. A new EU control regulation would extend the control requirements even further, while at the same time there is an understaffing in the Veterinary Office “A full staffing will be achieved by the end of 2022 at the earliest. Due to the lack of staff and the increased need for control, we therefore call for the creation of two additional posts for 2022 in the area of animal supervisors: ‘This is intended to further increase the level of compliance with the controls’, concludes Vogel.

Enquiries to:

Jakob Mähler
Group Managing Director
Alliance 90 / The Greens Main-Kinzig
06181/61596
0176/46763336
fraktion@gruene-mkk.deCategories:faction