Good evening,

Marie Lisa Kehler

Deputy head of the regional section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

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in Taunusstein, dogs are now allowed to leave the house without a tax stamp on their collars, in the Main-Taunus district everything is being done to be better prepared for future flooding and the farmers in the region fear that they could soon find themselves in financial difficulties - with devastating consequences for the entire region.

Pool construction with obstacles:

Somehow the only hope left is that the next flood event in the Main-Taunus district will take a little longer.

There is a concept of how masses of water are to be contained and how floods are to be prevented.

But nothing more exists so far.

The Fugro office in Dresden has identified eight locations for retention basins.

Four of them have priority - in Ehlhalten and Eppstein am Schwarzbach, near Altenhain am Sulzbach and near Kelkheim am Liederbach.

They are intended to help protect against flooding in the event of a category HQ20 flood.

Don't know what an HQ20 is?

The code is quite easy to decipher.

This is a flood event that occurs on average once every twenty years.

Even the newly planned basins will not be enough for a flood of the century.

Until the first excavators roll

First of all, space has to be found for the oversized catch basin.

And that is rare in the Rhine-Main area.

Engineering offices also have to carry out the nature conservation investigations at the planned locations.

Works that will last until the end of 2023.

Completion of the retention basins is not expected until 2025.

How much the whole thing should cost, why the original plan failed and why the pools don't necessarily protect against flooding after heavy rain has been compiled by editor Andrea Diener.

The Fear of the Peasants:

Pay attention to organic quality, eat products from regional producers - many people can no longer afford that at the moment.

Because many things are becoming more expensive in everyday life, savings have to be made.

And sometimes it gets in the way of one's own ideology.

Better milk from the discount store than no milk at all.

Farmer President Karsten Schmal and the representative of the farmers from Wetterau, Andrea Rahn-Farr, are sounding the alarm.

They call for a policy of proportion and more financial support.

In their opinion, higher end customer prices are not a solution to prevent farmers from getting into financial difficulties with their farms, as our author Robert Maus writes.

Instead, they advocate not further burdening Hessen's farmers with new requirements, because neither consumers nor the state are willing

bear the resulting additional costs.

For example, a new fertilizer ordinance is to come into effect on December 1st, which in turn will entail higher investments for farmers.

“Soon we won't have any more pig farmers and the cows are also declining.

But the products are needed, and what cannot be produced here is then imported.

But we can see where that has led us with energy, medicines and microchips," our author quotes the representative of the farmers from Wetterau.