Administrative farmer

The administrative farmer is a farmer who is mostly trained in agricultural science and who acts on behalf of the state or performs advisory tasks in associations related to agriculture.

The term administrative farmer was used in the Prussian territories until 1945. It was used to distinguish between

• the practical farmer as owner / owner and operator of a small to medium-sized farm and
• the trained farmer as an employee in administrations, professional associations / organizations, corporations such as domain chambers, chambers of agriculture, Reichsnährstand etc.

Employment in the last-mentioned institutions could take place

• as a civil servant with the appropriate titles according to grade; here you could for the activity z. B. use the term "zootechnical officer";
• as an employee: the term "administrative farmer" fits here
• as administrators of Prussian domains: they were z. Some of them were civil servants in the higher service and then carried the titles of the salary group (e.g. bailiff).

In the time of the GDR there was no civil service, so that the term administrative farmer was used correctly for activities in the sovereign area (monitoring of laws and ordinances in animal breeding inspections, breeding directors of VEB Tierzucht, fattening testing institutes, father animal rearing stations) and purely administrative activities .

When Hans-Heinrich Müller (* 1926) dealt with the agricultural history of Prussia, the term administrative farmer is used. In the article Domain tenants in the 19th century he writes on page 123:

“ The domain tenants have always been the pioneers of agricultural progress , while Hugo Thiel, a first-class administrative farmer, since 1873 General Secretary of the Prussian State Economics College and senior employee of the Ministry of Agriculture, appointed director of the domain department in 1893 ", Whose tenants showed how" economic success can be achieved "even under the most difficult conditions."

With this, Müller used the term “administrative farmer” for both civil servants and employees.

Theophil Gerber uses in his biographical lexicon "personalities in agriculture and forestry, horticulture and veterinary medicine" in practical farmers the job titles "farmer", "farmer", "landowner", "domain tenant" and. Ä. The scientists are their main subject. He leads the managing directors of animal breeding associations with "animal breeding inspector", "animal breeding manager", "animal breeding officer", "animal breeder" or the like. For the people from several centuries who have been mainly active in administrations, chambers of agriculture, national nutrition , DLG etc. / or employees "administrative farmer".

In 1953 the agronomist Paul Ehrenberg wrote a textbook for administrative farmers.

Further examples of administrative farmers are Hartmut Boettcher and the horse breeder Eduard Meyer .

References and comments

1. ↑ Hans-Heinrich Müller was scientific work manager at the Institute for Economic History of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin (since 1973 Academy of Sciences of the GDR) and from 1987 head of the department of agricultural productive forces at this institute.
2. ↑ Hans-Heinrich Müller: Domain tenants in the 19th century . In: Yearbook for Economic History , 1989/1, Academy of Sciences of the GDR.
3. ^ Theophil Gerber: Personalities in agriculture and forestry, horticulture and veterinary medicine . 3. Edition. 2008, ISBN 978-3-936735-67-3 .