Carina Dünchem grew up on her parents’ farm. As a child, she drove the tractor with her father or helped sort potatoes. But take over the farm after graduating from high school? This was initially unimaginable for the 35-year-old. “I was afraid of facing this as a woman. (…) I didn’t know any women in the immediate area who were farmers and had their own business,” she says in the stern podcast “Die Boss”.
After spending a year unhappy in an office job in Hamburg, she missed the country air. She decided to join her parents’ farming business. In a few years she will take over the farm. “Since I’ve been working in agriculture, I haven’t gone to work a day. (…) It’s really lucky for me to say that I do what I love and do it every day,” says Dünchem. She also shows this on her blog “Live, Love, Agriculture”. She uses social media to explain her work and thus becomes the role model she would have wanted for herself and for many other young women who also want to go into agriculture.
Dünchem does important work with her blog and dispels prejudices. Farmers would over-acidify fields with pesticides? Do green potatoes really have to be thrown away or can they still ripen? Questions that Dünchem asks herself every day in addition to her work on the farm. She is shocked to discover “how far away people really are from agriculture.” They don’t know where their food comes from or how it is produced. She wants to change that and do her part.
Dünchem not only wants more understanding for her work from the population, but also from politicians. “Decisions are made that may affect a legislative period. But we think in terms of generations,” she says. “That’s why I’m not a fan of this ban policy, but we should go more into science and try out what’s possible what makes sense.” She fights for this in various places. Now not only online, but also on the board of the farmers’ association in her district.
In this episode of “Die Boss” you will find out what Carina Dünchem’s idea of sustainable agriculture is, how difficult it is to find a partner in her job and whether she, as a farmer, is ever happy with the weather.
At “The Boss – Power is Female” top women talk among themselves: host and multi-supervisory board member Simone Menne (including BMW, Deutsche Post DHL, Henkel) meets bosses from all areas of society to talk to them about their lives and careers. “Die Boss” appears every fortnight on Wednesdays on stern.de and the stern’s YouTube channel as well as on RTL and all common podcast platforms.
Editor’s note: Stern belongs to RTL Deutschland.
