We had been visiting farms in what used to be West Germany which had an average field size of around 20 acres (8 ha). Some, where the Code Napoleon that divides up farms into equal sizes as generations succeed one another, was still in use were much smaller. Suddenly without warning, for all traces of the previous border fence have disappeared, the fields got bigger. On several farms the FW study tour visited over the next few days field sizes were nearer 200 acres (80 ha) and clearly ideal for big, efficient machinery.
The people farming such holdings, many of whom had returned from the West to reclaim land confiscated from them by the former regime, admitted that the Communists had done them a big favour. They now benifit from economies of scale not available in the western side of the country where the removal of field boundaries is forbidden, as it is in the UK. Western technology had enabled them to increase production and yields and they were generally very pleased with life, especially as they watched the world price of cereals rising.
Moreover, most roads, houses and other buildings in the East have also been brought up to Western standards and there is only occasional evidence of how things used to be. The inhabitants of the East, or most of them for there is still significant unemployment in some areas, now enjoy the same or similar standards of living as those in the West.
Most crops, as in the west of the country, looked promising, although poorer quality land had suffered from the same kind of drought that we in the UK endured in April and early May. A few fields of sugar beet showed mixed germination problems cause by lack of seedbed moisture so familiar in East Anglia. And some light land winter barleys had scorched in places and patches were ripening prematurely. Had it not been for the unsettled weather we reckoned we might have seen a few combines working this week.
If the weather improves such fields will certainly come to harvest over the next seven days and the better winter barleys a few days after that. We doubted if barley yields would be very exciting but were convinced most winter wheats across the area we travelled, still several weeks away from being fit, would yield at least three tonnes per acre and probably a fair bit more.
We leave Germany today with a lasting impression of a well managed and beautiful countryside where farming is still regarded as a vital part of the economy and there is widespread recognition of the vital part agriculture can play in solving the energy and food crises ahead. We are a bit envious really.