INTERVIEW: Werner Zuse

Bavarian Agriculture Spokesman: Support Farmers’ Protests, Restore the Principles of Production

Feb. 9—Werner Zuse, State Chairman of the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo) in Bavaria, Germany has worked intensively on agricultural issues. In the 1980s he was one of the co-founders of the European Farmers’ Commission of the Schiller Institute. He was interviewed Jan. 24 by Elke Fimmen and Jonathan Thron, for the BüSo website. It is with their permission that EIR has edited this interview and reprints it here.

BüSo: German agriculture has been under attack for a very long time, and more and more farmers have been forced out, especially due to ever-increasing so-called “organic” requirements and bans. The bottom line is that more and more food has to be imported for the population in Germany. This is probably neither environmentally friendly nor efficient. What’s behind it?

Werner Zuse: For decades, the European Union’s policy has been to reduce agricultural production in Europe. All of this runs under the motto of nature and environmental protection. The result is that more and more food has to be imported. But this has nothing to do with environmental protection, as the food not only has to travel farther distances, but is also produced under less strict environmental protection standards.

The beneficiaries are the international financial markets and the big players in the food retail sector. Since the 1980s, their goal has been to vertically integrate agriculture, meaning that food production, from farm production to processing and sale, should be under the control, i.e., in the hands, of the food retail sector. Farmers, if they still exist as independent family businesses, would then be contract farmers, who would bear the risk of production but no longer make any decisions for their business themselves. How they must produce would then be dictated to them by the food retail sector. And that food retail sector would also decide who gets food, where, and at what price. So the consumer is then also completely at its mercy.

BüSo: Resistance to further free trade agreements planned by the German federal government also plays a role in the current protests against the planned abolition of tax exemptions for agricultural diesel and agricultural vehicles. What is this about, and why is free trade bad?

Zuse: Free trade agreements such as the Mercosur agreement [Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela] are intended to further facilitate food imports from these countries. So they [members of the EU] would displace production in their own countries, since the EU has been working on reducing food production in Europe for a long time with its environmental regulations such as set-asides, and reduction in the use of pesticides and fertilizers. Of course, all of this serves the interests of the big players in the international food trade.

Free trade agreements not only outsource food production from high- to low-wage countries, but also do the same to industry, as the free trade agreement between Canada, the USA and Mexico has shown. Parts for car production and their suppliers were outsourced from the USA to Mexico, to the so-called maquiladoras, because the workers there did the same work for much lower wages. Here too, corporations, not the national economies, benefit.

Free trade is the original economic model of the British Empire, placing power in the hands of traders whose slaves are producers. Such a model only creates poverty in the world and makes some people rich and powerful. The counter-model is the original American model of protectionism, in which the state protects and promotes production. This model was practiced within the framework of the EEC (European Economic Community, founded in 1957) in Europe until Great Britain joined the EU (1973). At that time, the EEC’s Common Agricultural Policy had market regulations for agriculture that guaranteed the farmer prices that covered his costs.

BüSo: With large demonstrations across the country featuring farmers’ very impressive tractors, many people may have realized for the first time that modern agriculture is highly capital- and energy-intensive. This applies to a modern economy like Germany in general. However, such considerations apparently no longer play a role in today’s politics, which operates purely ideologically. What needs to fundamentally change in the understanding of economics?

Zuse: Agriculture, like industrial production and crafts, must increase production through investments that increase productivity. With a growing population, this is also necessary so that the general standard of living can increase. This was the original aim of the EEC’s policy. As a result, the income of the population as a whole grew, and in the EEC area, a large percentage of employees worked in the manufacturing industry. For example, in Germany at that time it was over 50% of employees. Today, due to EU policy, it is only around 20%, although Germany still has a higher percentage of its workforce in production, compared to the other EU countries.

Europe must return to this model of protecting production from the machinations of the international financial markets so that Weimar conditions can be prevented and the population can have future prospects again. To this end, Germany should also join the policy of the BRICS states and take part in the great task of building the so-called Third World instead of converting our economy to a war economy.

BüSo: What are parity prices and why do farmers need them for their production?

Zuse: Parity prices are the alignment of income in agriculture with the general development of income in the economy. The crucial thing here is that income in agriculture, as in business in general, must enable the further development of the national economy. It must therefore be high enough so that the company cannot only continue to exist, but also make the necessary profit to be able to invest in improving production.

BüSo: What is the role of large international cartels and speculators, and how can they be eliminated?

Zuse: The big debate in today’s world is whether private individuals or states determine the rules of the economy. The globalists of Davos [the World Economic Forum] see themselves as masters of the world and, thanks to corrupt politicians, determine the economic policies of nation states. As a result, poverty increases, and constant conflicts and war are organized to ensure that no country becomes sovereign. This colonial system is now coming to an end, thanks to the lending of the New Development Bank of the BRICS countries for infrastructure investments in the Global South.

This means that the Global South can process its raw materials locally and thus create value in its own countries.

Europe should participate in this development of the economies of the Global South, and would then not only gain friends and trading partners with purchasing power, but also solve the refugee problem.

BüSo: What can Germany contribute to overcoming world hunger?

Zuse: The most important thing is to help countries to be able to provide themselves with basic foodstuffs. To achieve this, underdeveloped countries must quickly mechanize their agriculture and gain access to fertilizers and pesticides. At the same time, model farms and agricultural educational institutions must be established to provide farmers with the technical and scientific knowledge to be able to produce food as productively as we do here in Germany. In the short term, of course, direct food aid to the hungry areas also helps, as Russia has done by supplying free grain and artificial fertilizer to some of poorest countries in Africa.

To do all this, however, food stocks would also have to be built up in Europe, a practice which was still mandatory during the EEC era.

The COVID-19 epidemic has shown us not only the value of maintaining critical domestic production capabilities, but also that of building up surplus stocks for times of crisis. This is particularly true for food.

BüSo: Thank you, Werner Zuse!

For Further Reading

Lyndon LaRouche’s Four Laws. “The Science of Physical Economics”

BüSo blog: “Stop Green Feudalism”

BüSo Basic Program, including Agriculture

BüSo leaflet: “No, the Power of a Tyrant Has a Limit! Support the Brave Rescuers of Germany!” by Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Article (Jan. 17, 2024): “Berlin Rally: Farmers Defend the Future of Germany!”

Article (Jan. 12, 2024): “Defending Democracy: Yes, But Against Whom?” by Elke Fimmen

Support Message (Jan. 8, 2024): “For the Right to Produce Food! U.S. Farmers Show Solidarity with Protest Actions in Germany”

Article (Aug. 21, 2020): “The Family Farm Must Be Protected from Financial and Trading Cartels and Their EU Henchmen!” by Werner Zuse