Welcome

After four years, we and the entire HORSCH team were very pleased to finally meet many of you in person again at the Agritechnica 2023 and to exchange ideas with you. We welcomed guests from Germany and other European countries to our stand in Hall 12. We also really enjoyed the lively attendance of visitors from more distant continents. The numerous discussions that took place were characterised by a high level of interest in new technologies, innovations and, above all, arable farming issues. There was a high demand for complete solutions, like for example in direct seeding.

The past few years were marked by many different challenges. This will certainly continue to be the case in 2024. Climate change, demographic developments, cash crop prices, higher costs and interest rates, cuts in subsidies: All of this means that, in addition to the financial challenges, farmers also have to cope with shorter working time windows and are therefore attaching more and more importance to efficiency and precision in their work. In this issue of terraHORSCH, we cover this topic in many articles.

The extension of the authorisation of glyphosate gives us some more time to modify our arable farming systems but does not take away our responsibility for ecology and the environment.

The European Parliament's decision to stop the EU Plant Protection Regulation (SUR) and thus put an end to the ambitious reduction plans of the European Commission in Brussels to reduce the use of chemical plant protection agents by 50% for the time being allows for hoping that ideology-driven policy can fail. Perhaps a glimmer of hope that our society will understand that ideology can and should be resisted.

I wish you a blessed and merry Christmas, peace for us all, especially in the crisis regions, and a happy and healthy New Year!

Cordially
Cornelia Horsch