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Lower Saxony encourages wild plant production

Lower Saxony promotes the cultivation of wild plants

Lower Saxony promotes the cultivation of wild plants

A new funding programme for the summers of 2021 and 2022

In the German state of Lower Saxony, the cultivation of wild plants (flowering mixtures) as an agriculture system on arable land in Lower Saxony will be promoted in the future. The Lower Saxony Ministry of Agriculture is currently preparing a programme together with the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment.

The aim of the grant is to develop an ecologically valuable and at the same time economically viable addition to the cultivation of conventional energy crops. The guideline is due to come into force in July.

The flower mixtures also serve to protect the bees, whose importance as pollinators for biodiversity and food security is fundamental. Ministry of Agriculture draws attention to this against the background of World Bee Day, which was on 20 May 2021.

Ecologically and economically viable

Lower Saxony's Agriculture Minister Barbara Otte-Kinast appealed to farmers to take part: “Those who grow wild plants create diverse habitats for insects and wild animals. It also supports sustainable biogas production. I am sure: the funding makes an important contribution to avoiding nutrient inputs into the water!"

Lower Saxony's Environment Minister Olaf Lies added: “We want to create more habitats for insects in the agricultural landscape. With the wild plants, agriculture is moving away from monoculture maize cultivation - this brings variety to our landscapes and is again for the diversity of insects. This enables farmers to implement and support the goals of the Lower Saxony Way in a very concrete way."

A research project called “Energy from Wild Plants - Integrative Nature Conservation through Wild Plant Cultures in Biogas Crop Rotations” laid the foundation for the funding.

For the new funding measure, farms and forestry companies can apply wild plant mixtures to parts of their arable land in the summer of 2021 or 2022. As a seed mix, a mix of mugwort, marshmallow, sainfoin, dyer's chamomile, fennel, yellow sweet clover, mullein and alfalfa is possible.

The utilisation of the growth should be implemented as an alternative input substrate in biogas plants from the second year of standing. The funding rate is 500 euros per hectare. The Chamber of Agriculture will announce further information - including data on when the applications can be submitted - on its homepage in due course.

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