In the last 20 years, Switzerland has lost more than half of its milk producers. That is over 20,000 farms that have had to switch over as a result of the unsustainable price policy. Recently the Federal Council even had to approve several butter imports to avoid bottlenecks. Anne Chenevard is fighting against this absurd situation as president of Faireswiss. The milk cooperative has grown steadily in recent years and is now represented with its fair milk at over 400 locations. Instead of just under 55 centimes, which by far does not cover the production costs, the farmers receive one franc per litre of “white gold”.
Mucca.ch spoke to project manager Berthe Darras about the current situation of dairy farmers and the goals of Faireswiss.
What is Faireswiss?
The starting signal was given on 23 September 2019, the day on which 14 milk producers, mainly from the French-speaking cantons, launched Faireswiss milk. This project consists of ten years of work. Since the milk strike in 2009, the farmers’ organisation Uniterre has been fighting to ensure that milk producers receive one franc per litre to cover production costs. Now this fight has been rewarded! Sales of fair trade milk have exceeded all our expectations. Since January 2020, 20 new members have already joined the cooperative. We currently have partners in Basel, Zurich, Lucerne, St. Gallen, Ticino, Bern, etc. And new ones will join in 2021.
Where can you find Faireswiss products?
In all Manor shops in Switzerland, but also in Spar shops. You can also find us in local food shops, cafés and restaurants. In total, there are more than 400 points of sale throughout Switzerland.
The range consists of UHT whole milk and semi-skimmed milk, which are processed by Cremo. There are also six soft cheeses from the Grand Pré cheese dairy in Moudon, coffee cream (initially for restaurants) and soon a fondue made from 50% Gruyère AOP and 50% Vacherin Fribourgeois AOP.
Why Faireswiss was founded?
Swiss milk production is in danger! We have lost another 520 milk producers in 2019. We are about to fall below the 19,000 mark. 20 years ago there were over 40,000 milk producers in Switzerland: more than 50% have stopped. Milk production for 2019 is historically low. Swiss butter stocks are at a record low. As a result, the Federal Council has approved several butter imports to avoid bottlenecks.
There is enough milk, but the problem is processing. Instead of using it to produce Swiss butter, semi-hard cheese is produced for foreign countries. This is a first step towards facilitating imports of dairy products, which are currently subject to high taxes – to protect domestic milk producers. But if these taxes continue to fall, the Swiss dairy industry is guaranteed to die. And then, for better or worse, we will have to drink milk from foreign factory farms in the future. And that in a country like Switzerland.
How could it have come to this?
Quite simply: on average, a farmer receives 50 to 55 centimes per litre of industrial milk. But at least 1 franc would be needed to cover production costs. That is why we are counting on you as consumers! By buying fair milk, support us in ensuring that there will still be milk production in Switzerland tomorrow!
More and more often, the voters are deciding the future of agriculture. Should more cows with horns graze on Swiss meadows again? To what extent can the consumption of regional foods be promoted by the Fair Food Initiative? These and other questions have already led to lively discussions in the past. And now other initiatives are about to be voted on, including those on the use of pesticides or biodiversity. Mucca.ch has compiled the most important facts and figures on agriculture in politics.
And Switzerland is right in the middle
In times of insecurity, marked by hamster purchases for fear of the coronavirus, some people become aware of how dependent Switzerland, as a small country without access to the sea, is on food imports and functioning air traffic: protective mask deliveries are stopped at German customs, the USA imposes an entry ban on Europeans and Italy’s food exports collapse. What now, if all of a sudden there are no more bananas, mangoes and pineapples in the supermarkets? What fate threatens Swiss if every second flight is to be cancelled? And how are we to bridge the forced holidays when swimming pools, bars, cinemas, ski resorts and fitness centres, including schools, remain closed?
At the end of 2018, swiss people deciced about the initiative for food sovereignty with the aim of promoting food production that is as extensive as possible and independent of foreign countries. It called for the protection of domestic farms and the consumption of more regional products. By means of cost-covering producer prices and higher requirements for imported products – they should meet the Swiss standard – the initiative committee wanted to prevent, among other things, the closure of 900 family farms per year for good. Because many considered the proposal to be too radical, it was rejected by 68.4% in the vote of 23 September 2018.
On that day, there was also a “no” vote (61.3%) for the Fair Food Initiative, which called for healthy, environmentally friendly and fairly produced food. It demanded that the Confederation strengthen the supply of sustainably, animal-friendly and fairly produced food and take measures against food wasters. Because the demands of the initiative “in principle” also applied to imports and demanded higher customs duties for products from unsustainable trade or poor animal husbandry, it was in conflict with international trade law. In addition to rising prices as a result of stricter controls, this was also one of the reasons why the Fair Food Initiative was sent down the drain by voters.
Last but not least, a decision was made in 2018 on whether farmers should receive financial incentives if they keep cows and goats with horns. Mucca.ch has already reported extensively on the horncow initiative (click here to see article).
What still awaits us
In February 2020, the Federal Council adopted the Dispatch on Agricultural Policy 2022+ to address the concerns of the population. The objectives include more efficient farms and a reduction in environmental pollution and the consumption of non-renewable resources. Existing measures to promote biodiversity are to be further developed and spouses are to be given better social security cover. The basic idea is promising.
However, Markus Ritter, President of the Swiss Farmers’ Association, points out that the numerous tightening up measures are leading to a deterioration in the competitiveness of Swiss agriculture and to problems in the security of supply. Ritter estimates that production (especially arable farming and livestock farming) will fall by 13% by 2025 and the gross self-sufficiency rate will fall by 8% in the same period. The new requirements will lead to considerable additional costs and also lower yields without an equivalent added value being achieved on the market. The planned regionalisation of agricultural policy will create unequal bases for families in the various regions. And despite this additional expenditure, direct payments will be reduced.
Ritter assumes that Agricultural Policy 2022+ will further accelerate the closure of farms (currently around 1,000 per year throughout Switzerland), as many farmers already have to take up a second occupation to keep their families afloat.
Ritter considers the upcoming initiatives for clean drinking water and a Switzerland without synthetic pesticides to be too radical and above all not feasible for the small farms with often many high-stem trees of well-tried fruit varieties, which today, due to the many introduced pests, would simply no longer yield an edible harvest without spray agents. These restrictions will lead to a decline in production and ultimately to higher food prices.
In the end, it is the consumers who decide.
With the time change two weeks ago many people became aware that the year is almost over again. The beaches are empty, the barbecue weather is over and many hiking trails are closed. A thick winter jacket, scarf and gloves belong to the standard equipment. While some can hardly wait for the beginning of spring, others are looking forward to the ski season. But how does nature prepare itself for the cold season? And what does a farmer from Zurich have to do with the time change?
Why trees throw off their leaves
For many, the coloured leaves on the trees or on the ground are the symbol par excellence for autumn. As the days become shorter and the hours of sunshine decrease, the trees break down the chlorophyll, which provides the green colour of the leaves and converts the carbon dioxide of the air and water into dextrose and oxygen by means of photosynthesis. Now the yellow, red and orange pigments, covered by chlorophyll, appear. The colourful splendour does not last long, however, because sooner or later all the leaves fall to the ground. The reason: with the storage of chlorophyll in the roots, branches and trunk, the trees form a separating tissue between twig and petiole, which gradually cork up. A slight gust of wind is now enough for the leaves to fall off.
The deciduous trees do all this to ensure their survival. Otherwise they would die of thirst. Because a large part of the water evaporates through the leaves and the roots can draw less and less water out of the soil during the cold season, they have to throw away their “water wasters” in order not to dry up. On the forest floor, the leaves are then crushed by centipedes, isopods, earthworms and many other animals until the fungi and bacteria in the soil finally decompose them into humus.
How animals survive the winter
Not only the plants, but also the animals are preparing for winter: Most of the birds fly to warmer countries, while so-called “sedentary birds” such as sparrows, tits or blackbirds remain in Switzerland. Other winter-active animals such as deer, foxes and hares cavort in the forests. The others hibernate.
Animals such as fish, frogs, lizards and insects hide in a hiding place and spend the winter inactive or dormant: their bodies freeze in very cold temperatures and only wake up again when it gets warmer outside.
Squirrels, badgers, raccoons and brown bears, on the other hand, hibernate. They lower their body temperature, wake up from time to time and occasionally look for food.
Other animals such as hedgehogs, bats, marmots and dormice eat nothing at all and can reduce their body temperature and heart rate many times over during hibernation. They wake up occasionally, but not to look for food, but to change their sleeping position and give up excrement. For this reason you should never wake up hibernating animals, because this costs them energy every time and possibly even death, because there is no food available.
Save energy thanks to time changeover?
For almost 40 years now, we have been moving one hour forward or back in March and October. An important reason for the introduction of summer time was the hoped-for energy saving in view of the 1973 oil crisis: less energy was to be used to generate artificial light and sleeping time was to be shifted to hours with less daylight. Whether this change really resulted in lower energy consumption is still controversial today. In any case, Germany and Austria also introduced summer time in 1980, while in Switzerland (at least for one year) there was still only winter time. So it happened that trains coming from Austria had to wait an hour at the border in order to be able to keep to the swiss timetable again.
Why farmers took the referendum
Switzerland as a “time island” came into being in 1978 when the electorate voted against the new time law. Five young farmers from Zurich had successfully collected 80,000 signatures (instead of the 30,000 required at the time) for a referendum. They feared that the change in time would disrupt their working rhythm and the rhythm of their animals. Among other things, they would no longer have time for their rehearsals at the theatre, as they would only be able to bring in the hay after milking due to the later sun peak. And also the cows are used to being milked at the same time. Contrary to the will of the people, there should not be a time island after the summer of 1980: A year later, the Federal Council and Parliament decided to do the same for all European countries around it and on 29 March 1981, for the first time, also presented the clocks by one hour.
So if the EU pushes through its currently discussed plans for the abolition of the time change due to the negative effects on the rhythm of humans, animals and nature, Switzerland has no choice but to follow suit.
In the hope that your inner clock has settled down again since the changeover, Mucca.ch wishes you a contemplative pre-Christmas period. And if you are already in the mood for a cosy evening in front of the open fire, ask the farmer near you for firewood (click here for Mucca farms).
Import more Brazilian beef even though the Amazon is on fire? The Mercosur Agreement of 23 August is highly controversial: While the machinery and pharmaceutical industries are benefiting from better export conditions, environmentalists and farmers’ associations are opposed to the agreement.
What it is about
After the EU had already prepared itself for a free trade agreement with the four Mercosur states (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay) in June 2019, the EFTA countries Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland followed suit. Fearing that the Swiss economy would be left behind, Economiesuisse, among others, demanded a quick compromise. Now the export industry in particular is benefiting from the better conditions: Thanks to the agreement, around 95 percent of exports will be completely exempt from customs duties in the medium term. Brazil and Argentina previously sealed off their industries with massively high tariffs of up to 35 percent for machinery.
In return, Switzerland grants the Mercosur states annual concessions for meat, cheese, wheat, honey, red wine, edible oils, feed grain and certain fruits and vegetables.
Criticism from inside and outside
The agreement with the Mercosur states is meeting with resistance at home and abroad: Swiss farmers fear massive pressure on the prices of agricultural products. With land areas many times larger and machinery heavier, the production costs of South American farmers are significantly lower. The Farmers’ Association also criticises the fact that too little attention has been paid to sustainability: It is not only animal husbandry that is in many respects a cause for concern; Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has also approved more than 200 pesticides which are banned in Switzerland because of their hazardous nature.
At the same time, it is feared that the agreement will lead to more grubbing if more meat and soya can be exported. In this case, not only the rainforest, the earth’s green lung, but also the indigenous population would suffer.
Amazon as a focal point
The worst forest fires in years have been raging in the Amazon since August. The earth’s green lungs are burning. In Bolivia alone, over a million hectares of rainforest fell victim to the fire. To be able to cultivate more fertile soil, setting fires has long been one of the usual practices of local farmers. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who quickly blamed non-governmental organisations for the fires, was the main head-shake.
As a result, Norway, for example, stopped payments to the Amazon Rainforest Protection Fund. Other European countries such as France and Ireland threaten to block the free trade agreement. Resistance is also emerging in Switzerland: parties such as the SP and the Greens are planning a referendum. At the same time, a “Mercosur coalition” of consumer and animal rights activists, farmers’ and development organisations is calling for binding sustainability criteria and animal protection to be included in the agreement.
The final word has therefore not yet been spoken. And the fires in the Amazon continue to rage …
The mountains, the water, the snow: Switzerland I love you. Even if I have to admit that I only really appreciate you after my three years abroad. Before, it would never have occurred to me to go hiking voluntarily. Before, when I was 16, I was the poster child for climate change. “Whaaaaaaat, you’ve never flown before? Never drank from a coconut? And don’t even own a cell phone?” people asked me in horror. At the time, very few people were aware that not consuming is not so bad for the environment.
Where are you all coming from?
“Mountain goat” and “Heidi” they called me. As a Swiss woman who climbs all the mountains, can’t do without her morning muesli and has cows at home, that’s pretty obvious. They were all always enthusiastic about our mountains, the cleanliness and efficiency of the Swiss. Whether this is still true remains to be seen. I think of the littered city parks and what all lies next to the highways. Sometimes it seems to me as if we’re about to burst. Where do all these people actually live? Why is everyone suddenly driving their cars into the mountains, so that entire roads to excursion destinations have to be closed? Finding a parking space after 10:00 a.m. is almost like playing the lottery. The fact is: the 9 million Swiss probably can no longer be prevented. That’s why respectful coexistence is all the more important.
Tolerance and respect
LGBTQ, #MeToo, BLM. Whaaaaat? We have to accept each other as we are. Everyone gets to decide for themselves how they live their lives. If someone eats a vegan diet, that’s their right. If someone wants to go on a trip around the world, let him. If someone doesn’t want to buy cheap clothes, I accept that. Coercion and paternalism are never good. I am also wary of extremism – whether right-wing or left-wing. Our society is constantly changing. Our decisions and behaviors have made us what we are today. There is no one person to blame for everything. Nor is there THE solution to all our problems.
Always this politics
As a self-proclaimed “bridge builder” between town and country, I would like to bring agriculture closer to consumers and break down prejudices. A big topic is always the (formerly so-called) subsidies, which no longer exist in this form. Today, subsidies secure the existence of farming families. Without these funds, the income of some families would fall below 30,000 Fr. per year. By way of comparison, a medium-sized tractor costs around CHF 90,000. For me personally, subsidies are also a form of compensation for a misguided pricing policy. Currently, a farmer receives just under 50 Rp. for a liter of milk, half of what he received in 1993 and the same as 40 years ago. In the store, the price has doubled. If you pay up to 3x more for organic products, please don’t think that the surcharge ends up with the organic farmer, it’s only a fraction of that. In short: After everyone has helped themselves, it’s the producer’s turn.
New ways for a peaceful coexistence
Have you ever made your own alpine cheese, smoked bacon, distilled schnapps or picked cherries directly from the farm? Swiss farmers invite you to their farm and show you how they live for a day. You will accompany them in their work and learn how many steps it takes until we have something to eat. On each experience day you can expect a highlight and of course you can take the homemade farm products home with you. You are also cordially invited to lunch.
Discover the wide range of Swiss specialties and book your farm experience day in the Mucca online shop today.
Become a farmer for a day and secure your very own personal farm experience
I am a walking toxic cocktail! Every morning I shower with formaldeyhd shower gel. This is followed by a spritz of (naturally aluminium-free) deodorant with artificial musk compounds. And during the short lunch break, I have a triple-packed lunch box with an extra portion of microplastics on top. Poison lurks everywhere in everyday life, how can I keep my body healthy? And what are the effects of our consumption on the environment?
Who can we still trust?
It was at the Migros checkout when I realised how little control we have over our food. I had to return a packet of organic Indian sesame because it contained ethylene oxide. Ethylene oxide increases the risk of cancer and is banned in Switzerland and the EU. So have I poisoned myself with my wholemeal sesame breads? And why is there no organic in it where it says “organic”? Since this event, my trust in the food industry has been quite tarnished. I want to know what ends up in my body and how it is produced!
Two groundbreaking initiatives
On 13 June 2021, we will decide how Switzerland will feed itself in the future. It is about the two agricultural initiatives “For a Switzerland without synthetic pesticides” (pesticide-free initiative) and “For clean drinking water and healthy food – no subsidies for the use of pesticides and prophylactic antibiotics” (drinking water initiative).
For this article, I conducted interviews with people directly affected and the president of the Schwyz Organic Farmers. The aim was to find out whether the agricultural initiatives are really as extreme as their opponents claim. All studies/sources cited are listed at the bottom.
The initiatives in brief
The prophylactic use of antibiotics, pesticides and non-native feed are the main concerns of the drinking water initiative. It states that too many antibiotics are given to humans and animals in this country, resulting in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. More and more pesticides are being detected in drinking water. And the import of animal feed pollutes the environment abroad and, according to the initiators, is even responsible for the deforestation of primeval forests. Only food produced without pesticides may be imported. In Switzerland, too, farmers must completely renounce pesticides and the prophylactic treatment of their animals with antibiotics if they want to continue to receive direct payments. In addition, they may only feed their animals with their own feed. A possible reduction in domestic food production is to be compensated for by a change in consumption behaviour (e.g. less food waste).
Organic food prices for everyone
Acceptance of the initiatives weakens food security, endangers jobs and shifts environmental pollution abroad. That is why the Federal Council recommends a 2 x No. But what do organic farmers say?
Mucca.ch spoke to Paul Ebnöther, President of the Schwyz Organic Farmers’ Association. He emphasises: “These initiatives are not free. A Yes vote costs. And it costs all of us. Food prices will rise, that’s for sure. We can no longer choose between the M-budget carrots or the three times more expensive organic carrots. If we force all farmers to convert to organic farming, we will have to reckon with higher crop failures and quality losses. And if less is produced, prices will go up.”
To guarantee our food supply, imports would increase, a move away from regionality and short transport routes! The environmental impact will be higher and shifted abroad. In Switzerland we have the most strictly controlled agricultural production in the whole world. We are controlled a lot and intensively. At the same time, laboratory sample tests keep revealing sensitive substances in foreign food. If we import more, we not only make ourselves more dependent on foreign countries, but we also lose control over how our food is produced and who produces it. In the last twenty years we have lost 30% of all farms. Already, we can only provide about 60% of the population with domestically produced food. If the initiatives are to be adopted, this would likely mean we could feed 1.5 million people less.
At this point I would also like to emphasise that we take the concerns of consumers seriously, for example with the Pesticides Act recently passed by Parliament. But these popular initiatives are coming too quickly and are too extreme. We must not forget that we are deciding the fate of tens of thousands of farming families.
Impact on farmers
In Brunnen on Lake Lucerne, Ursi and Armin von Euw are the third generation to run their farm according to IP-Suisse guidelines. In the past they lived mainly from dairy farming, but today direct marketing is an important mainstay. In their self-service farm shop they sell their own fruit, eggs and chicken as well as many other specialities from farmers in Schwyz.
Who are your customers?
Our customers are families and individuals who consciously eat regionally and seasonally. They want to know what ends up on their plate. They not only want to know the people behind their food, but also how it is produced. Especially with eggs and chicken meat, we notice how important the husbandry of the animals is to them. It is important to us that they can get fresh air at any time and that they have enough space. Our customers trust us and know that we do our best for our animals and plants every day.
We can score with a large selection of apples, pears, plums and cherries. Some of our varieties are no longer even available in the shops and are real taste bombs. In order to preserve this diversity, we would like to keep the old high trunk trees on the farm for as long as possible, even though the care and harvesting of the fruit with the high ladders can be quite time-consuming.
Why haven’t you switched to organic farming?
In many ways, especially in milk production and chicken keeping, we already farm very close to organic standards. The main reason why we chose IP-Suisse is because we grow fruit. We live in an area with a lot of rainfall and the associated high humidity and risk of fungal attack. In addition, there are pests such as worms, aphids or the Asian cherry vinegar fly, which can destroy entire harvests. Anyone who has their own garden knows that every head of lettuce is a found food for slugs and aphids. And if you invest hours and days in caring for your plants, it would be infinitely sad to have to watch the many fine fruits fall victim to them without us being able to do anything about it. At the same time, we know that many consumers are not willing to buy wormy and bad fruit.
All of us, including organic farmers, practice plant protection. This is nothing negative, but necessary, because it is about protecting the plants. We spray only as much as necessary, but as little as possible. After all, why should we poison our own soil and plants on it unnecessarily? Our parents and grandparents lived off the yields of this soil. We, too, only use it for a limited time before it becomes the basis of life for our children.
What does a yes vote mean for your business?
No one can tell us how we should maintain hygiene standards in the future. We would not be able to disinfect our hands and boots before and after the stall without disinfectant. And the cleaner for the milking machine is banned, without an alternative having been found so far.
Due to the climate and the soils, it is hardly possible to grow crops here in central Switzerland and in mountainous areas. Therefore, we have to buy in the grain for our animals. The initiative denies us this exchange and cooperation with colleagues if we want to continue to receive direct payments. It only allows us to buy our own feed. This means that we would have to stop producing laying hens, eggs and chicken. Our colleagues, organic or not, would also no longer be able to keep chickens or pigs. So we are turning our backs on regionalism.
It remains to be seen how the growing demand for LIFE foods is to be met. Aren’t we encouraging factory farming? What about spices like paprika for crisps, which are not produced organically abroad in sufficient quantities? What about the 160,000 jobs directly affected in agriculture and the retail trade if higher prices lead to an increase in shopping tourism?
Who will receive how much?
It would be nice if our children and grandchildren continue to run the farm one day. We love working with nature and the animals and are grateful that we can largely feed ourselves. However, we feel that our profession and our work are less and less appreciated. Unfortunately, we have no influence on the price policy of the retailers. We find it absurd that only a fraction of the surcharge that consumers pay for organic food ends up with the organic farmer. Some of them even return to conventional farming. With IP-Suisse we also meet high standards of animal welfare and environmental protection.
Too extreme and counterproductive
Back to the walking poison cocktail. Do you know what flows down the Rhine river in a year? According to the Federal Office for the Environment, 65 tonnes of industrial and household chemicals, another 20 tonnes of pharmaceuticals, 20 tonnes of artificial food additives and 1 tonne of plant protection products. Our medicines, cosmetics, suntan lotions, birth control pills, paints, rust-proofing agents – all of these pollute our water. Plant protection products account for less than 1 per cent! And yet Switzerland is the only country where I drink from the tap without a second thought and fill up my sports bottle at the nearest fountain.
I don’t have a car, my mobile phone is four years old, I am afraid of clothes shops and I have greatly reduced my avocado consumption. All this because I know the damage we do abroad with our consumption. In my opinion, these initiatives are not thought through to the end and are anything but social or ecological. We want to “protect” our health and the environment, cut back on regional food production, accept more imports (=longer transport routes) in return and largely relinquish control over compliance with production and animal husbandry standards. We demand less food waste, but overlook the harvest losses if all farms are forced to convert. We leave the Swiss apple with scab on the shelf and reach for the perfect apple from New Zealand or South Africa.
We have to rethink agricultural policy, that’s true. But we also have to rethink our own consumption. Switzerland will soon have 9 million inhabitants and the most beautiful meadows are being concreted over. More people lead to more traffic, more littering and more pollutants in the water. Should we really blame agriculture for all this? Maybe it soothes the conscience of some, but this black-and-white thinking does not get us anywhere.
I am already looking forward to June, because then we will have fresh cherries at home again. I love climbing the ladders and picking the sweet fruits. Even if I know they are sprayed, I eat them straight from the tree. I grew up like that and I still live like that. I know that my parents only spray as little as possible to prevent there being a worm in every fruit. It might even be healthy, but for meeting my protein needs I still prefer the fresh eggs from the neighbour.
It’s important to me that I know who produces my food. And that we don’t become too dependent on foreign countries. If, in the next crisis, it’s every country for itself again, there shouldn’t be a shortage of basic foodstuffs as well as toilet paper...
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