Promotional Fund
and Rehwinkel-Stiftung Foundation

Promotional Fund: Focus on research and continuing education

Rentenbank devotes its entire distributable profit to the promotion of agriculture and rural areas. One half of the distributable profit is allocated to Rentenbank’s Promotional Fund and the other half to the German federal government’s Special-Purpose Fund administered by Rentenbank.

An amount of EUR 9.25 million was allocated to the Promotional Fund from the bank’s distributable profit in the past financial year. We used these funds to support both individual projects and institutions of importance for agriculture and rural areas.

Another focal point of the Promotional Fund besides agriculture-related research is the promotion of cooperation projects between academic facilities and institutions in the agricultural sector. We also use the funds of the Promotional Fund to support practice-oriented model projects, education measures and events, particularly projects related to continuing education events for agricultural professions.

We also provided financial support to international cooperation ventures in the agribusiness sector, particularly student exchange projects for students of agricultural sciences, and projects aimed at conveying knowledge to children and young people.

We also promoted projects in the areas of forestry, animal welfare and livestock farming, as well as climate protection and sustainability.

Edmund Rehwinkel-Stiftung: Promotion of science and research

The foundation Edmund Rehwinkel-Stiftung was founded by Rentenbank in 1974. In the spirit of the man after whom it is named – Edmund Rehwinkel, the former President of the German Farmers’ Association – the foundation promotes agricultural research activities and projects of great practical use for agriculture. The capital of this foundation organised under civil law, which is recognised as a non-profit institution, is EUR 17 million.

Scientific papers

The annual calls for proposals on issues of current interest to the agribusiness and food industry pertain to scientifically and socially relevant discussions and developments. The research papers are presented to the broader public at the Rehwinkel Symposium.

The central theme of the 2024 Rehwinkel Symposium was “More Resilience and Transformation – Strategies for Agriculture and Public Policy”. Scientific papers on the subject of “Transformed Agriculture in Global Competition” were promoted in 2024.

Scholarships

The foundation also awards two to three scholarships per year to outstanding students specialising in agriculture or food sciences. The scholarship recipients receive financial support for two years. They can also attend seminars, trade fairs, and other events.

Additionally, the Rehwinkel Stiftung awards a total of four German National Scholarships sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF) to students of Göttingen University and Gießen University.