A farmer complains that the most fertile soils are being sacrificed to the Garzweiler opencast mine.
Bernd Schmitz is a dairy farmer in Hennef and supplies many consumers with vegetables through solidarity-based agriculture. In doing so, he uses the difficult soil of his farm as well and responsibly as he can – and yet has to watch helplessly as climate change affects his life’s work. “We have three drought summers behind us, in which my cows almost starved and I had to buy expensive feed; this year the soils could no longer absorb the water masses. “
Last Sunday, Bernd Schmitz was in Lützerath to visit. The NRW chairman of the “Working Group on Rural Agriculture” had traveled to the edge of the Garzweiler opencast mine as a functionary. On behalf of his association, he supports the farmer Eckhardt Heukamp, who at the beginning of November is threatened with early possession – a de facto expropriation made possible by mining law despite ongoing legal proceedings – by the energy company RWE.
When the 55-year-old picks up a handful of Lützerath arable land on the edge of the protest march, the farmer comes through and his eyes light up: “These are the most fertile soils we have,” says Schmitz. “The loess layers here are up to nine meters thick; they are ecosystems that have grown over millennia. This floor is a universal genius; Everything grows here, from carrots to lamb’s lettuce. We cannot at all afford not to use this potential, especially during the climate crisis. “
Shifting is not enough
That’s what Schmitz says while behind him a farmer from Erkelenz brings in his carrot harvest – and in front of him the bucket wheel excavator of the opencast mine is eating its way into the precious crumb. Because not only villages and monuments fall victim to lignite mining, but also the surrounding arable land with them. “For me this is a symbol of the lack of appreciation for what nourishes us. Last year, panic suddenly broke out everywhere because toilet paper was running out. Corona has shown how quickly elements of supply can tip over. But has anyone ever noticed in the supermarket that the loess soil is being removed here? Do we want to wait for it? “
Schmitz sees the appreciation that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture has for loess soil as ironic: “You have chosen loess soil as ‘Soil of the Year 2021’. At the same time, they pretend that this natural soil, which was used and populated as early as the Stone Age, could be removed here and simply dumped elsewhere as a thin layer. We only scratch the surface when farming; just as important is what lies underneath. “
On the website of the ministry it says: “In the lignite mining areas of Central and West Germany, loosens are separately excavated and temporarily stored during the construction of open-cast mines. During the final recultivation, the loess material is covered again as the top layer, at least two meters thick. Here, too, pararendzines from Kipp-Loess develop rapidly. If the soil is used and cultivated gently in the first ten years, high-yield arable sites will develop. ”In fact, RWE even receives EU subsidies for land that has been destroyed and then less valuable recultivated land for this rest period.
“What you dump at the other end of the opencast mine is never the same again,” criticizes Schmitz. “For me it is hubris to believe that such a grown floor system could be broken down into its components and think that it will work.”
At the same time, Bernd Schmitz sees a great opportunity dwindling with the floors of the Erkelenzer Börde: “Everyone wants to ‘buy regionally’, but the fact is that in Germany we only produce 40 percent of our vegetables ourselves. In order to face the climate crisis, we need more food sovereignty – and yet we dig up the water and soil for it on our own doorstep. “
