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For more than a decade the topic of digitalization has been very present in agriculture. This was achieved, among other things, through a large number of government-supported development projects that were carried out at universities, research institutes and in small and large companies in the agricultural sector.

Nevertheless, practical agriculture nowadays is far from using all the tools of digitalization, many practical farms are still undecided on whether and which digital technology should be introduced on the farm.

The question arises as to what status digitalization currently has in politics, in order to determine how the introduction of digitalization in the agricultural sector can be accelerated. What is politics doing to advance knowledge, infrastructure and further development and thus put agricultural digitalization into practice?

To get answers to these questions, representatives from politics and administration were interviewed.

EU level: Dr. Peter Jahr

Interview

Dr. Peter Jahr studied at Leipzig University, where he got a diploma in Agriculture in 1984 and received his doctorate (Dr. agr.) in 1988.

From 1990 to 2002 he was a directly elected member of the Saxon State Parliament and therein a member of the Committee for Agriculture, Food and Forestry.
From 2002 to July 2009 Dr. Jahr was a directly elected member of the German Bundestag and appointed Commissioner for Animal Welfare.
In the 2009 European elections, Dr. Jahr was elected to the European Parliament where he works as deputy member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and as a rapporteur on the strategic plans for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union.
The committee deals with improving the quality of agricultural products, the supply of agricultural raw materials and forestry. It also maintains relations between the European Parliament and the Community Plant Variety Office.
In addition to his work in the European Parliament, Dr. Jahr has been a part-time farmer in his home region since 1990.

As this website is a growing project, we are planning to have a Q&A section for this interview video. If you have any further questions for our interview partners, please contact us: dcz-info@iakleipzig.de

National level: Dr. Steffen Beerbaum

Interview

Dr. Steffen Beerbaum is head of the unit Application of Digitalisation in Agriculture at the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL). He studied Agriculture Sciences and Agricultural Economics and holds masters' degrees in Agricultural Sciences from the University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim as well as a masters' degree in Agricultural Economics from the ENSA in Montpellier, France.
He received his doctorate in Agricultural Sciences at the University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim. Since 2001, Steffen Beerbaum has been working in different positions at the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

As this website is a growing project, we are planning to have a Q&A section for this interview video. If you have any further questions for our interview partners, please contact us: dcz-info@iakleipzig.de