Gerold Rahmann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gerold Rahmann (Photo 2017)

Gerold Rahmann (born April 29, 1962 in Wittmund ) is a German agricultural economist.

education

Gerold Rahmann was born in 1962 on a small-scale dairy farm in Hesel , Friedeburg municipality in East Frisia . He attended elementary school in Hesel and secondary school in Friedeburg. After graduating from the Mariengymnasium in Jever , he left East Friesland for the first time to begin his community service in 1980 at the youth and drug advice center "Hinterhaus" in Hanover. Here he was politically active in the anti-nuclear power movement and in the self-organization of those doing community service.

After his community service Rahmann completed his agricultural apprenticeship and studied agriculture at Göttingen from 1984 to 1990 with a focus on agricultural economics . As a student he was active in the student working group "Organic Farming" and the working group for rural agriculture . After several study visits to India, Brazil and Egypt, he founded a farm commune with fellow students in 1986, set up a self-sufficient organic farm in Bischhausen and a wholesale and retail trade for organic wine. In the summer months Rahmann got to know the practice of agriculture better on cattle pens in Switzerland and as a harvest helper on arable farms in Germany. In 1989 he spent a year in Malawi and then wrote his diploma thesis at the Institute for Rural Development on the "Development of dairy farming on small-scale farms in Mzuzu, Malawi".

Professional career

From 1990 to 1992 Rahmann worked as a doctoral student at the Institute for Rural Development at the University of Göttingen. To this end, he spent three years researching nomadic animal husbandry in Sudan under drought conditions and received his doctorate in socio-economics in 1993 . He then moved to the University of Kassel as a post-doctoral student . Here he devoted himself to the system-oriented development of methods of biotope maintenance with farm animals as a new topic in land use in Germany. In 1999 he completed his habilitation on this subject and received his private lectureship in agroecology .

In 2000 Rahmann was appointed director and professor of the newly founded Institute for Organic Agriculture of the Federal Research Center for Agriculture (FAL). The focus of his research was the development of environmentally and animal-friendly animal husbandry systems that are both efficient and socially accepted. The focus was on milk production with cows, sheep and goats, but also on pig and poultry farming. In principle, he has also researched organic farming systems that work without animal husbandry. The FAL was dissolved at the end of 2007 and the institute was assigned to the Federal Research Institute for Rural Areas, Forests and Fisheries (Thünen Institute for Organic Agriculture) - a departmental research facility of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL). The focus was then on "Research for the organic farming of tomorrow: environmentally friendly, animal-friendly and efficient" experimental, empirical and multifunctional.

Rahmann has been honorary professor at the Faculty of Organic Agricultural Sciences at the University of Kassel in Witzenhausen since 2006 and teaches organic sheep and goat husbandry, self-sufficiency and research methods.

From 2015 to 2017 Gerold Rahmann set up a "Green Innovation Center for Agriculture and Food" in Ethiopia as part of the special initiative "A world without hunger" of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). In his work in Africa, the main focus was on bringing knowledge from organic farming into the improvement of the agricultural production of smallholders. In 2017 Rahmann was appointed to the advisory board of the BMZ's "Knowledge Center for Organic Agriculture in Africa".

Memberships

In addition to his full-time work, Rahmann is also a volunteer in German and international organizations. From 2011 to 2014 he was treasurer and from 2014 to 2020 president of the "International Society of Organic Agriculture Research". From 2014 to 2020 Rahmann was elected a member of the World Board of the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements . Here he mainly dealt with the strategic further development of organic farming under the Organic 3.0 concept, which he had developed with farmers since 2010. Rahmann has been a board member at the Research Institute for Organic Agriculture Germany (FIBL) since 2001. Rahmann was also a member of the Board of Trustees for Technology and Construction in Agriculture from 2003 to 2018 (KTBL, member of the "Ökolandbau" consortium from 2003 to 2018, member of the main committee from 2013 to 2017). He is a member of the organic farming association Bioland and the Naturschutzbund Deutschland (Nabu).

Rahmann is "Editor in Chief" of the scientific journal Journal of Organic Agriculture at Springer Verlag. He is the editor of the scientific journal Journal of Sustainable and Organic Agricultural Systems .

The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 mobilized Rahmann politically and he joined the Greens with other communards - for example Stefan Wenzel . From 1989 to 1991 he was a member of the Göttingen district council, from 1994 to 2000 a member of the Gleichen municipal council, and from 2003 to 2013 a member and parliamentary group chairman of the Greens in the Bad Oldesloe city ​​council . In 2020 he became a member again. Since 2008 he has also been a member of the Stormarn district council . There he has been chairman of the environmental committee since then (with an interruption from 2016 to 2017).

Works

  • Biotope care as a new function and service of animal husbandry. Shown using the example of the de-bushing of limestone grasslands through goat grazing. (= Agraria. Volume 28). Habilitation thesis. Publishing house Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-8300-0109-6 .
  • Economic action by nomads: keeping animals under drought conditions using the example of Butana / Sudan. (= Socio-economic writings on rural development. Volume 111). Dissertation. Wissenschaftsverlag Vauk, Kiel 1995, ISBN 3-8175-0206-0 .
  • Organic animal husbandry. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, 2004, ISBN 3-8001-4473-5 .
  • Hunger. Novel. 2006, ISBN 3-00-020496-2 .
  • Only Oldesloe. Novel. 2012, ISBN 978-3-00-040481-8 .
  • Africa - Exodus, Exitus or What? Novel. 2018, ISBN 978-0-244-16514-7 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rahmann, Gerold
ALTERNATIVE NAMES GuruGeri
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German agricultural economist
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Wittmund