Do investors ruin Germany s peasant agriculture

This paper deals with the activity of non-agricultural investors in the German agricultural biogas production with an agent based approach. A literature review and two expert interviews are carried out for their characterization. An investor is hypothetically implemented in an east German case study region. The goal of the simulations with the agricultural structural model AgriPoliS is to determine its effects on other farms in the region and the region itself. The results show that the non-agricultural investor can run its business economically viable. The presence of this investor increases the rental prices in the region. This applies to both arable land and grassland. The results, however, suggest that an investor does not accelerate the structural change, because in this scenario more farms persist until the end of the simulation and especially smaller ones are economically better off. The investor has changed the cultivation patterns of the whole region: In general, an intensification of land use is observed as more energy crops are produced for the production of biogas substrates. On the other hand, the production of less intensive crops and cereals decreases. Regarding the use of grassland, the production of grass silage is increased at the expense of grazing. Acknowledgement :