Alliance “Grazing Livestock Farming Needs a Future”

Grazing livestock farming is at a crucial point – ecologically, economically, and socially. More than 80 federal, state, and regional associations have now joined forces in an unprecedented alliance and signed a joint 10-point paper on the future of grazing livestock farming. Pferdesport Deutschland is also part of this alliance. The central message is unequivocal: Without a viable perspective for grazing livestock farming, species, biotope, and climate protection cannot be achieved in large parts of Germany.

Extensive grazing with sheep, goats, cattle – and explicitly also with horses – is one of the most efficient instruments for agricultural species and biotope protection. It makes a decisive contribution to the implementation of national and European obligations, for example within the framework of Natura 2000 and the EU Nature Restoration Regulation.

At the same time, grazing livestock farming has been under massive pressure for years. Causes include insufficient economic viability and a lack of planning security, growing verification and documentation requirements, high sanction risks, increasing competition for land use, and the regional spread of predators. Declining animal populations are already leading to the fact that ecologically particularly valuable grassland areas can no longer be properly maintained in many places. A further decline would have serious consequences for biodiversity and cultural landscapes.

The alliance of over 80 organizations therefore calls for the development of a cross-departmental National Grazing Strategy. This strategy should firmly anchor grazing livestock farming as a central management form in agricultural, nature, and climate protection policies. For horse-keeping associations and businesses, the situation is currently escalating further, which is why Pferdesport Deutschland explicitly supports the demands of the GRÜNLAND platform:

The position paper has been submitted to the responsible federal and state ministries for agriculture and environment. Further associations are expressly invited to join the alliance. Pferdesport Deutschland will continue to actively support this process – in the interest of horses, businesses, associations, and the cultural landscape. Pferdesport Deutschland/sag

Full text available at https://www.pferdesport-deutschland.de/news/aktuelle-meldungen/umwelt-und-pferdehaltung/weidetierhaltung-braucht-eine-zukunft–