Wie die klimaschutzbedingte Wiedervernässung von Moorböden landwirtschaftliche Familienbetriebe herausfordert. Einsichten zu einer zentralen gesellschaftlichen Gruppe für die sozial-ökologische Transformation der Landnutzung

Abstract

The rewetting of agricultural peatlands has been discussed in Germany for around two decades as a measure to reduce CO₂ emissions in the land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector. Yet little is known about how this debate affects farmers operating on drained peat soils. To address this gap, we conducted narrative interviews with family farmers in Lower Saxony, Germany’s most peat-rich federal state, and analyzed them using objective hermeneutics. Our findings show that rewetting is widely perceived as an external intervention that conflicts with farmers’ claims to autonomous farm management. This tension also shapes biographical and farm-related future perspectives: maintaining existing farm concepts is associated with uncertainty and continuing experiences of external control. In an ambiguous discursive field, rejecting rewetting is often easier than repositioning oneself. At the same time, farmers view their farm concepts as fundamentally open to change.