Thünen Medal

Johann-Heinrich-von-Thünen-Medal in Gold

The Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S. stopped awarding the Thünen Medal in 2005 and replaced it in 2007 with the newly created Cultura Award. The Agricultural
and Nutritional Sciences Faculty awards the Thünen Medal on its own as of 2009.

The prize curatorship consists of six members. The Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel appoints three members from among its full-time professors in addition to the respective dean. The other members are appointed by the Faculty on the recommendation of the Board of Trustees. At least two members of the board of trustees should be practical farmers.

Johann Heinrich von Thünen

(June 24, 1783 to September 22, 1850)

Johann Heinrich von Thünen was born on June 24, 1783, in Kanarienhausen near Hooksiel in Jeverland. He attended Lucas Andreas Staudinger's agricultural training school in Holstein, where he demonstrated fundamental ideas as early as 1803 on a term paper, which he later developed into a seminal work of national economics as a practical farmer on the Tellow estate in Mecklenburg from 1810 to 1850).

His teacher and friend Staudinger accompanied his work and ensured that Thuenen's work "The Isolated State in Relation to Agriculture and National Economy" was published as Part 1 in Hamburg in 1826. Four years later, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Rostock.

In his work Thuenen shows the optimal supply of the population with economic goods and thus at the same time the expedient location and the optimal production intensity of the individual branches of the economy. In his assumptions, the arrangement of the directions of production takes place around the point of sale in the so-called "Thünen circles". They are arranged according to the transport costs per unit of area and distance around the market. Thünen's method is primarily that of isolating abstraction.

The 2nd part of the "isolating state" was published in 1850. Particularly noteworthy from this are the statements on the natural remuneration of workers contained in his wage formula. These statements also show Thünen's social attitude in particular.

With his work, Thuenen founded important research institutions in the economic and social sciences, such as farm economics and econometrics, agricultural, urban and forestry location theory, marginal analysis, marginal productivity theory, economic optimization, total model calculation, and theories on political and social statements about natural wages and profit sharing.

He died on September 22, 1850 on his Tellow estate as a practical farmer and is today considered the most important German economist of his time

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

 

Liste der Preisträger

1966 bis 1969

1966 Helmut Graf (†), Domäne Marienburg bei Hildesheim
1967 Flemming Juncker, Overgaard (Dänemark)
1968 Wilhelm vor Schulte (†), Dr., Achterwehr über Kiel
1969 Adalbert Freiherr von Poschinger-Bray (†), Dr., Irlbach über Straubing

1970 bis 1979

1970 Peter Herzog von Oldenburg, Lensahn (Holstein)
1971 Werner Reinersmann, Dr. , Gut Lerchenfeld bei Regensburg
1972 Friedrich Matthiesen, Herrenkoog (Nordfriesland)
1973 Emil Klaus (†), Bischoffingen (Breisgau)
1974 Sir Nigel Strutt, T.D., D.L., F.R.Ag.S., Chelmsford/Essex
1975 Carl-Ernst Büchting, Dr. , Einbeck
1976 Anton Schlüter (†), Dipl-Ing. Dr. h.c., Freising
1977 Peter Herzog zu Schleswig-Holstein (†), Grünholz
1978 Dietmar Hölzl (†), Landwirtschaftsdirektor Dipl.-Landw., Fürth
1979 Adolf Luetgebrune, Landwirt, Lage-Müssen/Lippe

1980 bis 1989

1980 Klaus Peters, Landwirt, Röst bei Heide (Holstein)
1981 Joachim Klindworth, Landwirt, Bargstedt-Ohrensen (Niedersachsen)
1982 Alfred Strothe (†), Hannover
1983 Deutsche Landwirtschafts-Gesellschaft e.V., Frankfurt a.M.
1985 Hans-Hermann Meinecke, Westerstede/Hollenriede (Niedersachsen)
1987 Dietrich Brauer (†), Hohenlieth (Schleswig-Holstein)
1989 Hans-Ulrich Hege (†), Domäne Hohebuch, Waldenburg

1990 bis 1999

1991 Romúald Ozimek, Dipl.-Ing., Brzozow (Polen)
1993 Karl-Heinz Hüggelmeyer, Erpen/Bad Rothenfelde
1995 Franz Ehrsam, Großheirath
1997 Bernd Kopmann, Hohendorf
1999 Sven Fischer, Örebro/Schweden

2000 bis 2014

2001 Heinrich Graf von Bassewitz, Dr., Dalwitz/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
2003 Dr. Chantal Mathy, Daussoulx, Belgien
2005 Siegfried Mayer, Möderbrugg, Österreich
2009 Christian Graf Holck(†) , Farve
2012 Dr. Martin Frauen, Hohenlieth

ab 2015

2015 Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Alois Heißenhuber, München-Weihenstephan
2018 Leo Siebers, Gut Endhuisen, Kleve