Berlin, January, 21, 2019: „From pork to wine“: All agricultural sectors are represented at the 44th TOP seminar of the Andreas-Hermes-Akademy (AHA) 2019. 25 junior staff ranging from agricultural master to farm manager, students and alumni of the agricultural sciences are undertaking since the beginning of january a nine week long closed retreat for personal development.
The world of agricullture has become very complex. Turning off the
fertilizer spreader and planning crop rotations are practical finger
exercises but today’s agriculture is so much more. The TOP seminar
focuses on team-oriented personal development of the junior staff who
will be in charge of the future communication in the industry. „The
focus here is the human“, said a participant of lasts years seminar. The
participants of the seminar are taking part in several excursion to
Frankfurt, Berlin, Brussels, Rome and Casablanca.
On January 21st their tour lead to the German capital to Bernauer Street, a focal point of the long division between east and west, a place where the rye field by the former Death Strip and the PeaceBread Association remind everyone of the investment to a lasting European peace.
Adalbert Kienle, member of the PeaceBread board, reminded the young agriculturalists of the narrative of the postwar generation and showed a sketch of an abandoned plough on the former battle field Hartmannswillerkopf in the french region Alsace. More than 30.000 French and German soldiers died there during the First World War by fighting for an allegedly important post on the front line.
This narrative is more acute then ever. The discussion about the Brexit „ is disassembling the United Kingdom“ Kienle explained. The peace in Europe is still on the table for the elections to the European Parliament in May. The plough is elementary to prepare the soil for the seed. Gibfried Schenk from the managing office of the PeaceBread Association elaborated that „The lonely one“ at Hartmannswillerkopf and the rye field on Bernauer Street both show that agriculture needs peace. Peace needs remembrance and remembrance creates values.
The AHA- participants had a lot of questions about the project and visited the memorial at Bernauer Street guided by Gibfried Schenk. These young farmers are preserving the country life with their work and are a part of the rural value chain. Their tasks, ideas and plans keep are supposed to keep young people in the country. This could also be the motto of the annual conference „Peace and Agriculture“ 2019 in Lithuania. The concerns and hardships of country life are shared by young people from the Baltics to Bulgaria. The partners of the PeaceBread network from Bulgaria would like to expand this narrative of remembrance with a youth conference this year.
