The years 2018/19 in Markus Söder's political life were characterized by species protection.

He was driven to do it rather than realized the urgency of his own accord.

This applied, for example, to the planned construction of a ski area on the Riedberger Horn.

First of all, Söder wanted to lend a hand to the Alpine plan, which protects the flora and fauna there.

When he realized that the protests were becoming dangerous, he backed down.

Timo Frasch

Political correspondent in Munich.

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Even with the most successful referendum in Bavarian history, "Biodiversity and natural beauty in Bavaria - save the bees", Söder was initially on the defensive, before taking the lead in the movement and recommending that the state parliament accept the referendum.

He was much ridiculed as he wrapped his hands around a tree like a woman's waist.

But it was also thanks to this "rebranding" that he later became a near-candidate for chancellor.

Of course, the CSU leader had to pay a price for the green image: his party's alienation from the peasantry.

Their representatives accepted the resolutions on species protection - but with their fists in their pockets.

Some CSU strategists found that venial, the proportion of farmers in the electorate was getting smaller and smaller anyway.

Suddenly there was Aiwanger

But this calculation does not go far enough: Many people in the country still feel connected to agriculture, through ancestors, traditions or the cultural landscape.

The wealthiest citizens often owe their wealth to fields that have been turned into building land.

For many CSU deputies, too, the soil on which you are your own master is still a source of identity.

Söder scratched this self-confidence with his thorough manner.

Dissatisfaction grew when the CSU registered that Hubert Aiwanger, leader of the Free Voters and graduate agricultural engineer, offered to be the farmers' new natural partner.

The initiators of the referendum paid respect to Söder.

For having opened up to the realization, despite resistance, that productive agriculture depends on bees and fertile soil.

But disillusionment soon set in.

This was partly politically motivated - as a Green you can't praise a black person over and over again.

But it is also justified in the matter at hand: in Bavaria, for example, the promotion of organic farming or the creation of the much-heralded biotope network is only progressing slowly.

At least since the defeat in the federal election, Söder has been less concerned with greening up his party than with addressing the regular voters.

This has been all the more true since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Farmers are also suffering from rising diesel and fertilizer prices, but they are also benefiting from higher food prices.

Above all, however, they have gained new self-confidence because they feel needed again, keyword food safety.

Anyone who recently attended a farmers' meeting felt the new spirit, which critics see as the old one: produce as if insects were dying or nitrate pollution in the groundwater did not exist.

Söder: More farmland

At a party conference at the end of April, with a view to the president of the farmers' association present, Söder demanded that the "entire set-aside mania" to preserve biodiversity be "reconsidered" because of the world food crisis, and not just for a year, but "permanently".

Most recently, he spelled it out again after a cabinet meeting with the EU Agriculture Commissioner.

Söder demanded “more cultivation options”.

Germany lags behind the EU possibilities.

The Green Federal Minister of Agriculture, Cem Özdemir, has already approved the grass on the ecological priority areas as animal feed.

So that's not enough.

Because of the production losses in Ukraine, he wants to give farmers in this country the opportunity to turn it into real farmland.

Agnes Becker from the ÖDP, a kind of mother of the bee referendum, is afraid of being thrown back.

The state government plays the protection of species "against starving children and warm rooms".

In fact, the other Bavarian cabinet members also bumped into Söders Horn after the meeting with the Agriculture Commissioner.

Agriculture Minister Michaela Kaniber, also CSU, called for food security to be anchored in the Basic Law.

"It is unacceptable that we always have environmental and climate protection as our priority." And the Minister for the Environment Thorsten Faithr (Free Voters), in whose house there is a certain sensitivity to the fact that nature and culture are in conflict , spoke almost exclusively of the Bavarian cultural landscape worth preserving.

"Professional lighting" for bird protection

On Tuesday of this week, climate protection was on the agenda in the Bavarian cabinet.

Those involved made it clear that, in case of doubt, it would take precedence over species protection.

Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck issued this slogan with a view to wind power, Söder also calls for it for hydropower: he even wants to build new hydroelectric power plants on a near-natural river like the Salzach.

With such requests, he knows his cabinet colleague and competitor Hubert Aiwanger is on his side.

The deputy prime minister said on Tuesday that in times when old coal-fired power plants are rightly being reconnected to the grid and CO2 is "shooting out" with it, one must "also think about examining the issue of bird protection in a sober and competent manner".

It is "significant" that the red kite, although allegedly threatened with extinction, appears at every wind turbine location in Germany.

"Either it's the last of its kind, which then flies around all over Germany - or they're not that rare."