About Lohnunternehmen

Lohnunternehmen

LOHNUNTERNEHMEN is the monthly German trade journal for agricultural contractors, published by the Beckmann Verlag GmbH & Co. KG in Lehrte. With its claim "So funktionieren Lohnunternehmen" (how contracting businesses work), it is the official organ of the agricultural contractors' professional organisation and the specialist medium for a distinctive branch of the agricultural economy: the contractors who perform field work, harvesting, crop protection and forestry services for farmers and other clients with their machinery. The magazine's online home is lu-web.de, and its editorial team documents the contractors' work in print and on video, from the maize harvest with converted snow blowers to the separation of slurry with mobile separators.

Overview

LOHNUNTERNEHMEN addresses a profession that stands between farming and the machinery industry: the Lohnunternehmer, the agricultural contractor. These are the businesses that bring technology, knowledge and experience to the farm whenever they are needed: for harvesting, for crop protection, for specialised forestry work. They form long-term partnerships based on trust, quality and reliability, and their services range from tillage before and after the harvest, sowing and planting, the application of mineral and liquid fertilisers, the transport and spreading of farm manures, to soil sampling, the documentation of work performed, agricultural office services, and advice on variety selection and input use. Forestry services include felling and extraction, planting and thinning, and the construction of fence and enclosure systems.

The magazine is the monthly specialist journal for all agricultural contractors, and the official organ of their professional organisation. Its readers are the contractors themselves: the entrepreneurs who invest in the six-figure machinery, who employ the drivers and operators, and who calculate the services that keep their businesses viable. The editorial programme follows the agricultural year: the harvest reports, the technology tests, the business management topics, and the professional policy issues that affect the trade.

The claim "So funktionieren Lohnunternehmen" expresses the magazine's concept: to show how contracting businesses work, in the technical, economic and organisational dimensions. The reports combine the machinery fascination of the agricultural press with the business perspective of the entrepreneur: which machine for which service, at what cost, with what utilisation, and with what result for the customer.

The publisher is the Beckmann Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, based at Rudolf-Petzold-Ring 9 in 31275 Lehrte near Hanover, a specialist publisher for the agricultural contracting trade. The magazine's website lu-web.de extends the monthly print journal with current content, and the editorial team's video reports document the contractors' operations in the field.

History

The trade journal LOHNUNTERNEHMEN was developed as the professional medium of the agricultural contracting trade, a branch of the agricultural economy that professionalised decisively in the postwar decades. Where harvest work was once done by the farmers themselves or by the itinerant threshing contractors of the early twentieth century, the modern Lohnunternehmer emerged with the mechanisation of agriculture: the combine harvester, the self-propelled forage harvester and the high-capacity slurry tanker made contracting a capital-intensive business requiring professional management.

The Beckmann Verlag, the Lehrte-based publishing house behind the magazine, specialised in this trade: its agricultural publishing programme includes the book "Vom Lohndrescher zum Lohnunternehmer" (from the contract thresher to the agricultural contractor), documenting the profession's history. The magazine's role as the official organ of the contractors' professional organisation gives it the institutional anchoring: it serves the organised trade, reports on the association's work, and provides the forum for the profession's discourse.

Over the years the magazine has documented the trade's transformation: the growth of machinery dimensions, the precision agriculture revolution with GPS steering and yield mapping, the professionalisation of business management with cost accounting and digital documentation, and the diversification of services into municipal contracting, landscaping and forestry. The 2026 issues, from the February report on maize transfer with a converted snow blower to the April report on slurry separation, show the continuing combination of machinery practice and business reporting.

Content and Sections

Each issue of LOHNUNTERNEHMEN combines machinery reporting with business content. The field reports are the journalistic core: the editorial team accompanies contractors in their operations, documenting the work with text, photography and video. The reports cover the full range of contracting services: grain and maize harvesting, grassland harvesting and transport, slurry and digestate application, crop protection, tillage, and forestry operations. The technical detail serves the professional reader: which machine configuration, which working widths, which outputs.

Technology coverage addresses the machinery itself: new tractors, harvesters, implements and their testing in contracting practice. The magazine's tests evaluate the machines from the contractor's perspective: performance, fuel consumption, reliability, and the economics of the investment. Business management content addresses the entrepreneur: cost calculation, pricing of services, utilisation planning, personnel management, and the legal and tax framework of the contracting business.

Professional policy coverage serves the organ function: the work of the contractors' associations, the political issues affecting the trade, from road traffic regulations for agricultural machinery to the fertiliser ordinance, and the training of the next generation. The profession of Fachkraft Agrarservice, the skilled agricultural service worker, is the trade's own apprenticeship, and the magazine supports the recruitment of young talent with reports on training and careers.

The video reports extend the print content: the editorial team's field documentaries, published through the online channels, bring the sound and movement of the machinery to the audience. The combination of print depth and video immediacy serves the media habits of the trade's practitioners.

Publisher and Organization

LOHNUNTERNEHMEN is published by the Beckmann Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Rudolf-Petzold-Ring 9, 31275 Lehrte. The Lehrte-based publishing house is a specialist publisher for the agricultural contracting trade, with a programme of magazines, books and digital media serving the profession. The magazine is the official organ of the agricultural contractors' professional organisation, which gives it the institutional connection to the organised trade.

Detailed information about the magazine's current editorial leadership is not publicly confirmed in the sources consulted. The editorial team produces the monthly issues, the online content at lu-web.de, and the video reports from the field operations.

The business model is that of the B2B agricultural specialist magazine: subscriptions from the contracting businesses, supplemented by advertising from the agricultural machinery industry. The readership of contractors, who invest in the industry's most expensive machinery, is the precise target group of the tractor, harvester and implement manufacturers, the tyre and input suppliers, and the service providers. The magazine's function as the official organ guarantees its distribution within the organised trade.

Digital Presence

The website lu-web.de is the magazine's digital home, extending the monthly print journal with current news, reports and service content for agricultural contractors. The video reports from the field operations, published through the online video channels, document the contractors' work with the immediacy of the moving image: the maize harvest, the slurry separation, the forestry operations.

The digital strategy serves the print magazine: the website and the videos promote the current issue, recruit subscribers, and make the magazine's content accessible to the trade's practitioners. For a profession that works outdoors with large machinery, the combination of the monthly print depth and the digital video reports covers the information and inspiration needs. As the monthly specialist journal and official organ of the agricultural contracting trade, LOHNUNTERNEHMEN remains the professional medium of Germany's Lohnunternehmer, in print every month and online every day.