Meinke Ostermann is an inaugural Scholar from Germany and receives a 2023 scholarship to study farming in the future, supported by a Coalition of German Scholarship Investors.
Meinke is a full-time sales manager at Dvelsdorf Handelsgesellschaft mbH, based in Ottersberg (Lower Saxony). Prior to this role, he was a consultant for digitalization in arable farming and regenerative energies at the Chamber of Agriculture Lower Saxony. The Dvelsdorf Handelsgesellschaft business builds agricultural machinery for grassland maintenance and front loader attachments. The business has had production in Ukraine since 2012 with 100 employees. Meinke is responsible for worldwide sales and has the responsibility of 12 employees. In addition to his current career role, he is also a farmer and trained agricultural machinery mechanic.
His scholarship study topic primary question is: How do we set up farming of the future, food from the field? This covers a combination of other questions including:
How is mechanical tillage handled worldwide and why?
Is farming without chemicals really sustainable?
What role will robots play in future agriculture worldwide?
Meinke will travel to Australia to study no-till systems, Egypt and Israel, to visit large German companies doing research, the USA to research different robotics solutions and Netherlands and Denmark to study farming systems with high legal regulations. Meinke would also like to visit Africa to focus on the topic of nutrition.
In his spare time, Meinke volunteers with the fire department, AgrarScout and young farmers. He also enjoys hunting and has a sideline small business in project management and consulting. He also enjoys helping in his parental agricultural business.
