A biography in sixteen chapters

Childhood and family background

Alois Rainer was born on 7 January 1965 in Straubing, Lower Bavaria, and grew up in Haibach in the district of Straubing-Bogen. His father, also Alois Rainer, sat in the Bundestag for the CSU from 1965 to 1983. His sister, Gerda Hasselfeldt, later served as a federal minister and chaired the CSU group in the Bundestag. He is Roman Catholic, married and has two children, as his official Bundestag biography states. This site does not go beyond that public record on private matters.

Education

He attended primary and lower-secondary school (Grund- und Hauptschule) in Haibach from 1971 to 1980 and left with the Hauptschulabschluss. This was the common route into a skilled trade in rural Bavaria, and it set him on a vocational rather than an academic path.

Butcher apprenticeship

At fifteen he began a three-year apprenticeship as a butcher within Germany’s dual system of in-company training and vocational school. The craft page explains what this training involves and why the trade matters to his later politics.

Military service

After the apprenticeship he completed basic military service in the Bundeswehr, which was then compulsory for young men in West Germany.

Master butcher qualification

In 1986, aged 21, he passed the master butcher examination. The master certificate qualifies its holder to run an independent business in a licensed trade and to train apprentices, and it includes business administration and law as well as craft skills.

The family business

In 1987 he took over his parents’ business in Haibach, which the Bundestag described in 2015 as a butcher’s shop and inn run as a family enterprise. A 2015 Bundestag portrait records that he was still running it alongside his mandate. The butcher’s shop closed on 27 May 2025, shortly after he became a federal minister. His ministry cited staff shortages and the legal ban on ministers running businesses.

Entry into the CSU

He joined the Christian Social Union in Bavaria in 1989. From 1999 he sat on the CSU district executive and since 2015 he has been its deputy chair. Since 2005 he has also chaired the district branch of the party’s business association, the Mittelstands-Union.

Local political career

Like many Bavarian politicians, he built his career from the municipality upward. He also took on roles in the CSU’s association for local politics (Kommunalpolitische Vereinigung), chairing it for Lower Bavaria from 2009 and joining its state executive in 2010.

Mayor of Haibach

In 1996 he was elected mayor (Erster Bürgermeister) of Haibach, an office he held for eighteen years until 2014, the year after his election to the Bundestag. Local leadership describes what the office entails.

District council

Since 2002 he has been a member of the district council (Kreistag) of Straubing-Bogen, the level of local government that runs district roads, schools, hospitals and waste services across 37 municipalities.

Entry into the Bundestag

In September 2013 he won the Straubing constituency with 61.2 % of the first votes. In his first term he sat on the Budget Committee, the Committee on Food and Agriculture and the Audit Committee. He has been re-elected directly in 2017, 2021 and 2025. See Bundestag and Straubing constituency.

Budget and finance policy

From 2018 until October 2019 he was the budget and finance policy spokesperson of the CSU group in the Bundestag, the Landesgruppe, which speaks for Bavaria’s CSU members in Berlin. See Finance & Budget.

Transport policy

From 2019 to December 2021 he served as transport policy spokesperson of the joint CDU/CSU parliamentary group and was a full member of the Transport Committee. See Transport Policy.

Chair of the Finance Committee

After the 2021 election the CDU/CSU went into opposition. On 15 December 2021 he was elected chair of the Bundestag Finance Committee, which handles federal tax, customs and financial-market legislation, and he chaired it until 2025.

Federal ministerial appointment

The CSU had first intended Bavarian farmers’ president Günther Felßner for the agriculture ministry. Felßner withdrew in March 2025, citing his family’s safety after activists protested on his farm, and Rainer was nominated in late April. On 6 May 2025 Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier appointed him Federal Minister for Agriculture, Food and Regional Identity in the cabinet of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Current political responsibilities

His ministry is responsible for agriculture, food and nutrition, forestry, fisheries, animal welfare in farming, rural areas and, since 2025, “Heimat” policy. He represents Germany in the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council and remains the directly elected member for constituency 230 Straubing. His policy record is documented in Major Initiatives and debated in Criticism & Controversies.

Principal sources: Bundestag biography; Federal Government CV; Bundestag, Finance Committee constitution, Dec 2021; ZDFheute on the Felßner withdrawal.