Changes in Agriculture and Rural Employment in Southwestern Thuringia, Germany

Abstract

Population loss, the movement of young and middle aged people into occupations outside of agriculture, and the aging of LPG workers had been conspicuous in the rural areas of southwest Thuringia in former East Germany even before reunification. Aging of agricultural workers and acquisition of side jobs by members of farm households, processes similar to those occurring in West Germany and other industrial countries, had already begun. We investigated the employment situation in one particular village close to the former east-west border. Here, some young people were able to continue in their old occupations in the East even after reunification, while those who lost their jobs looked for employment in Bavaria, in former West Germany. They too often found occupations in which they could use their previously learned skills. The local LPG, on the other hand, was turned into a cooperative, which rehired for the most part young skilled workers, while the older generation was let go and went into retirement. There are now only two independent farms and one farmer who has rented his land out to a Bavarian lessee; all other land is rented by the local cooperative. In spite of the political changes the occupational structure of the area, agriculture with subsidiary employment-multiple job-holding farming-remains basically unaltered. We suggest that the equal division inheritance system, leading to small scale farms, and the existence of traditional manufacturing industries, etc., conditions that distinguish this region from the North of former East Germany, have sustained this structure. The location, close to the former border and resulting employment opportunities in the West, that became available with reunification, probably provide significant support for it. The rural area of southwestern Thuringia should thus be understood as having a character which is markedly distinct from that of the North of former East Germany.