Till Backhaus

Till Backhaus 2017

Till Backhaus (born March 13, 1959 in Neuhaus (Elbe) ) is a German politician ( SPD ). Backhaus has been Minister of Agriculture of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania since November 1998 (1998–2006: Minister for Food, Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries, 2007–2016: Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Consumer Protection, since 2016: Minister for Agriculture and Environment ). With 21 years of membership in the government, he is currently the longest serving state minister in Germany.

Life and work

Till Backhaus, 2011

After graduating from high school with a vocational qualification as an agricultural engineer / mechanizer in Pritzier- Schwechow in 1978, Backhaus did his military service with the NVA until 1980 and then completed a degree in agricultural engineering at the University of Rostock , which he completed in 1985 as a certified agricultural engineer specializing in plant production. He then worked at LPG (P) Neuhaus and then as a department head at LPG (P) Lübenheen . In 2001 he received his doctorate as Dr. rer. agr. at the Humboldt University in Berlin with the work Considerations on grain production in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania between 1900 and 2000 .

Till Backhaus is married. He has three children and two grandchildren.

Political party

Till Backhaus, 1990

In 1989 Backhaus was one of the co-founders of the Social Democratic Party in the GDR in the municipality of Amt Neuhaus / Elbe, which since June 30, 1993 has again belonged to the district of Lüneburg and thus to Lower Saxony. From 1991 to 1994 he was chairman of the SPD district association Hagenow and from 1994 to 2003 of the SPD district association Hagenow-Ludwigslust .

From 2003 to 2007 he was chairman of the SPD state association Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. From 2005 to 2007 Backhaus was a member of the SPD party executive. He is also one of the leaders of the Consumers, Food & Agriculture discussion group of the SPD party executive.

MP

From March to October 1990 Backhaus belonged to the first freely elected People's Chamber in the GDR .

Since 1990 he has been a member of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state parliament . He was elected in the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 1990 via the state list and from 1994 always in the Ludwigslust I state electoral district. In the state parliament he was chairman of the committee for agriculture from 1992 to 1998 and from 1994 of the committee for agriculture and nature conservation.

From 2004 to 2006 Backhaus was a member of the district council of the Ludwigslust district.

Public offices

After the state elections in 1998, Backhaus was appointed Minister for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to the state government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania led by Prime Minister Harald Ringstorff on November 3, 1998 . On November 7, 2006, he was appointed Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Consumer Protection in the Grand Coalition . Backhaus' Ressort created the beef labeling monitoring task transfer law in 1999, the longest valid and common compound noun of the German language at that time with 63 letters .

With a current term of office of over 21 years, Till Backhaus is currently the longest-serving state minister in Germany.

Other offices

Backhaus was a member of the Board of Directors of Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2009 . Backhaus is chairman of the supervisory board of Landgesellschaft Mecklenburg-Vorpommern mbH (LGMV).

Doctorate debate

Backhaus' doctoral thesis on the subject of considerations on grain production in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania between 1900 and 2000 with a length of 66 pages has criticized Wilhelm Römer as "insubstantial [it] work" that does not correspond to "scientific claims in terms of content or form". Backhaus also came under fire because his doctoral supervisor, Norbert Makowski, received around 13,500 euros in 2000 and 2001 as an advisor to the agricultural advisory company Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania / Schleswig-Holstein, which is subordinate to the ministry . In February 2016, the debate about this work, combined with allegations of plagiarism, came up again through numerous media reports. Backhaus essentially denied the allegations, but admitted "minor deficits".