What does it take for successful farm diversification? a comparison between Italy and Switzerland

It is a while since i have been looking in farm diversification in Europe as a way to support livelihoods of farming families. Yesterday night, the Swiss TV has shown a very interesting comparison between Italy and Switzerland in farm diversification in agri- tourism.

Swiss farmers diversify much less than their neigbors, because the return to labor in agro-tourism is low compared to other farm activities. In Tirol, next door, farmer are benefiting massively from agro-tourism and expand. So  how comes that their return on labor in tourism is so much higher compared to other activities?


This small feature suggests that farmers in Tirol are very well organized, and promote themselves as a group. They have adjusted their other activities in a way that it is easy to combine with agro-tourism, because they clearly have a big demand from tourism.
A model for Switzerland ? i guess we are trapped here between demand creation (is there demand in Switzerland where everything is so expensive for agro -tourism?) and between farmers starting to show innovation. Clearly there are very few farmers in Switzerland to took up the bet of of agro-tourism. Why not work with them to develop it further?

Recycling soils?

Recently, i have been looking into more soil and soil health, a quite complex topic. I have learned that soil is formed over years and needs to be managed well in terms of nutrients in order to not loose it fertility.

I have been quite fascinated by this news item on Swiss TV.



In Switzerland, when fertile land is build on, the soil has to be taken off layer by layer and brought to a location with degraded land. It is quite expensive measure to save fertile soils. Whereas some people find it a great idea, environmentalists find it an illusion. As soil is a result of a long lasting process, it will be discontinued when the soil is "moved".

For me it remains a quite amazing idea to move soils!

Shrimps made in Switzerland

Shrimp is a quite contested food, as it used to be quite a polluting production in Asia, with important antibiotics use. Also transport from these countries to Europe is very CO2 intensive as they need a cold chain.

Some young entrepreneurs address these issues by taking up the challenge to grow shrimps in Switzerland ! See the movie from the Swiss TV.



And as usual, there is much critique, there is even a request to take up shrimps into the Swiss animal protection law. Also shrimps need warm water, is it really ecological to keep shrimps in places where water has to be kept warm artificially?

An interesting initiative, remains the question, do we really need to eat shrimps? 

Save the cock!

In the Western world, meat production has become a real industry. Particularly chocking is the chicken production : half of the chicks are males, they don't give eggs and don't grow fast enough to give meat. So comes that half of the chicks, namely the male one are killed on the first day of live. Somehow, this is just such a waste.

A new breed is now being tested in Switzerland, for which the female are kept for eggs and the male fatten fast enough to become meat. So no first day killing anymore. However, this breed is less productive than the today's one.

Have a look at the report from the Swiss TV report about this new breed.

agriculture in the 18th century : the kitchen garden from Prangins Castle

view on Geneva lake from Nyon

Yesterday, i went on a small tour around Nyon, to visit the garden of Prangins Castel, which is also a part of the National Museum.


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(zoom into the green arrow to see the castle in 3D)

My personal interest went to the gardens. "The kitchen garden is in its form a copy of an 18th century palatial garden. Here, old types and sorts of fruits and vegetables grow that were cultivated and eaten/consumed in the region some two and half centuries ago. These plants, to some extent all but forgotten today, serve as witnesses to the nutritional habits and customary use of the period. This living conservatorium thus serves as a hoard of a fragile and threatened heritage with historical, botanical and ethnological facets of a broad palette of indigenous vegetable and fruit plants." (text taken from here)

the kitchen garden from Prangins Castle

An audio guide, guides the visitor through this garden, explaining the origine and the use of a selected amount of plants. These explanations are often completed by referencing to the dairy of Baron who lived in the castle as well as the encyclopedy of Yverdon that is dating from the 18th century. 

Through this audio guide I learnt a lot about agriculture in the 18th century, which i did not know before : some lessons learnt and thoughts I wanted to share with you in this post.

Morus tree

One of the first thing that stroke me were the Morus trees, the black and the white sort. I know that the white one is the one needed for the silk worm and the dark one is the one I used to go collecting and eating the fruit in Serbia. I had seen these trees in many places around the world, but not at home. So I learnt that the silk in the Castle is "home made". Silk made in Switzerland? So why does it today always come from developing countries?

Asparagus

Asparagus is still today a well known plant and one of my favourite vegetable on my plate. The audio guide was explaining that in the 18th century, they managed to grow them in January. Wait a second, climate change is yet to come, so how did they manage to get asparagus without heater and glasshouses? They used a pretty interesting technique. Between the ranges of asparagus, they would dig ditches before the cold season. They would fill the ditches with manure and cover them with straw. The fermentation process of the manure produces warmth that is sufficient for asparagus to grow in the winter. Is that a technology we will reinvent when we face an energy crisis?

Topinambour or Jerusalem artichoke

Topinambour is a sort of potato that grows very fast and once it is in the ground, can hardly be taken out. I had some in my garden in the Netherlands and never managed to get them out of there. The audio guide was explaining that this crop helped a lot to fight the famine, because it grows so easily and the leaves could be fed to livestock. So it just dropped into my mind, would that not be a solution for Africa? Does anyone know about evidence that it would not work?

The garden tour at Prangins Castle give you much more information than these and is definitely worth a visit. I will go back end of September to see the saffron  flower flowering with my own eyes.

the saffron flower (taken from wikipedia)

Secondary residences in Switzerland, a lack of targeting?

The threat that secondary residences are destroying the landscape in touristic area in Switzerland is not a new topic.  Already during my master studies in 2004, the amount of houses with closed shutters and low return for the touristic area were considered as a problem. Indeed, ghost villages are not authentic and do not attract tourists. It is therefore crucial that there are whole-year-residents in these villages, also to take care of the holiday homes. But because of the rush for secondary residences land price go up and locals cannot afford building and living in these areas anymore. They move out of the attractive landscapes, to live outside in cheaper location and commute for work, leaving the touristic villages empty.

The fascination to this topic had lead to my master thesis. It looked at the particular case of the Engadin, the touristic region in the East of Switzerland, where St. Moritz is located.

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With a system dynamic model, I tested several possible policies, among other fixing a maximum percentage of land for secondary residence, or separating land markets for residents and for non-residents.
The model showed that only policies that split the land market for resident and non-resident were efficient , as it would keep housing prices low and affordable for residents who could stay in the touristic area and keeping it authentic. Threshold policies would slow-down the urbanization but would not solve the problem of locals having to move to the periphery. 

Not only i was fascinated by the topic of secondary residences, but also some people took political actions. Last year the Swiss population accepted a popular initiative (a political procedure through which the population can propose a new law) that foresees to fix the maximum secondary residences to 20%. If a municipality already has more than this threshold, then no more secondary residence can be built, which is now binding the construction in all touristic areas.

Somehow it reminds me of discussions I had in Ethiopia. It is clear to  everyone that every location is different and therefore a different solution should be applied. But what do you expect from a developing country? they can only develop threshold based policies, though context specific policies would work much better... but Switzerland is not a developing country, yet context specific policies seem to be very difficult. And the lack of differentiation between the different context had consequences. It has lead to an almost comical drama. It was unclear from when the limitation on the construction for new secondary residences enters in force, at the day of acceptance of the popular initiative or January 1st 2013 as proposed by the government. In the meantime many construction authorizations have been requested and accepted in touristic areas, in order to build just before the new law enters in force.
Some weeks ago, the highest tribunal of Switzerland had to decide when the construction limitation enters in force and decided that it would be the voting day. In many touristic regions, this is a drama as many of these recently accepted project cannot be implemented anymore, and everyone fears economic slow down.  Politicians from these touristic cantons are already looking for new options, and even think of an initiative to contra-balance this initiative...  At least the Swiss political system offers escapes...

Here the new announcement of the tribunal's decision 

It is just a brilliant example of what happens when policies are implemented without accounting for different contexts. Stays that developing context specific policies are very challenging. What is fair and who decides about this? how to avoid corruption?

How sauerkraut will save the world!

You hear it everywhere  climate change and the loss of soil fertility are two issues that threaten our food security. Last week, on Swiss TV, I came across a pretty hilarious report on how sauerkraut juice could both increase soil fertility and contribute to climate change mitigation. Sauerkraut could therefore save us all from starving and insure a sustainable agriculture.

This is a pretty funny and unexpected  but serious idea. As Thomas Rippel explains : if you mix manure with sauerkraut juice then the manure will not rot anymore and lesser ammonia (a gaz responsible for climate change) gets lost in the atmosphere and the fertility of the manure is increased. That manure combined with coal increases soil fertility and traps CO2 in the soil. And therefore European farmers could contribute to reduces the CO2, and join the emission trading, making the whole effort profitable.

A pretty amazing idea that I will never be able to explain as well as the man behind the idea :



This is the report from the Swiss TV in German with an interview of Thomas Rippel



and here is a presentation given by Thomas Rippel in English

A stop to urban sprawl in Switzerland

This week end, the Swiss population accepted among others the new land use law. The new law aims at limiting urban sprawl by freezing the amount of development areas for the next twenty years. The basic principle behind it is to limit the areas that are converted from agricultural land into urban land, but increasing the density within the urban areas.

Indeed, in Switzerland, local zoning plan define how densely a certain area can be build by fixing the percentage of square meter a construction is allowed to cover, as well as a maximum volume that can be built on a plot. Sometimes also the maximum of floors are fixed. On paper it is relatively easy to change these values and allow new and bigger constructions.

See the a short history of urbanization of Switzerland (by Swiss TV in German)


But is it really so easy? if the intensification does not take place, then Switzerland will be lacking in housing capacity and the already high rents might go up. I am now living near to one of these areas where the intensification potential is already there. Some investor bought villas with big gardens, and wanted to build more intense, with flats. This is exactly what the new land use law is expecting. But the project never took place, because the population stood up and wanted to keep the historical picture of the town... so the success of this law will depend on our capacity to let old constructions go and get more modern buildings.

The most interesting part of the new law is its new financial tools coming with it. A new tax will be perceived on land that has been reclassified from agricultural land to urban. This allows to raise money for developing infrastructure in rural areas and landscape (or paying out the people for the plots that would be reassigned from urban to agriculture). A great financial tool that was already discussed a lot in the Netherlands during my PhD time.

I am looking forward to see how this law will be implemented!

Art to integrate communities and their landscape?

Lately, I have been collecting qualitative data from rural communities in Ethiopia. I have discovered that participatory mapping is an interesting way to bring the communities, scientists and local government together to discuss issues and strengthen to the relationship between the different stakeholder to their landscape (http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/06/giving-rural-communities-voice-adapting.html). During my holidays in Switzerland I came across a not such a new concept, the landscape illumination projects by the Swiss artist Ueli Studer (http://www.studermelar.ch/)  and realized that art can catalyze in the developed world the same way the participatory mapping does in the developing world.

Ueli Studer is a Swiss artist who illuminates interesting human made or natural landscape structures during one night, mostly with candle light. 

Viniterra, illumination project on the Biel Lake Switzerland (picture taken from http://www.viniterra.ch/index.php?id=354)

His newest project is planned in Davos, Switzerland and I had a chance to follow him in his preliminary steps : identifying the landscape structures that are worth pointing out and that through illumination give a new perspective on the landscape of the spectator. 

Tot Alp in Davos : a  landscape shaped by tourism

A whole team, constituted of Ueli himself, my father, a geologist and a film maker who documents the “making of“ took off to the “Tot Alp”in Davos to study the geological structure of an Alp on which nothing grows due to the mineral concentration in the soil. 

The area is heavily used for tourism : it is reachable by cabins and half of the area has been flattened for the skiing routes and an artificial lake has been created as a water reservoir to create artificial snow. 

The artificial lake as water reservoir for artificial snow

Also different geological layer come together bringing white, black, red and green stones together, giving the feeling that one has just landed on Mars. The whole day was about understanding how the geological structures have emerged and which are worth illuminating. If the project takes place, it will involve the local government, the transport company that runs the different cabins in the area, the alpine club and the trekking guides of the area (locals) that would fix and light the candle, the tourism office that can promote an event and show the film of it to tourists. Finally, if possible the local population should be able to see the illumination from the valley bottom.

The geologist and the artist sitting in front of a clear geological cut

After this day, it is very unclear if the project will take place at the Tot Alp, mainly because no landscape structures that would show new insight could be identified, but also because it would be difficult to see the illumination from the valley. But with or without illumination, or with illumination on another location, a process to bring communities, stakeholders and scientists together around their landscape has started. 

Discussing the landscape

All previous illumination projects from Ueli such as Viniterra 1 and 2 (http://www.viniterra.ch/index.php?id=442) have brought stakeholders, communities, farmers, scientists, tourism office and government together. Indeed, setting the candle often requires the authorization of the land owner, which is usually a farmer and the government. Also many volunteers, usually the local population meets up to light the candles. Also, a broader public can see from far away or even walk through the illuminated landscape, admire the landscape in a new perspective and learn about its structures. The discussions linked to the illumination of the landscape brings people together that otherwise would have not met and therefore shape the network and resilience within these landscapes.

Switzerland : agricultural policy reform passed

Last week I commented the up-coming agricultural reform in Switzerland, see http://catherinepfeifer.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-went-wrong-with-swiss-agricultural.html. On Wednesday, the reform was accepted by the parliament. There will not be any subsidy per animal anymore, but the subsidy will be area based. Expected impact of this policy change is to reduce the over production of milk and meat.

 

Clearly the farmers who have invested in modern livestock farm and who need to pay back their credit will be the looser, the low-input farmers the winners.
As a compromise, the parliament increase money that is made available to the agricultural sector. The amount of subsidy stays the same. The additional money should be made available in form of credits to allow farmers to transit in the new system. I wonder if this will really help the farmer who already has taken up a lot of credit and who is stuck in an industrialized agriculture...
Switzerland now has definitely a more sustainability oriented agricultural policy, that still provides the highest support to farmers in Europe. I am curious to see how the Swiss agricultural sector will adjust!
More info under :
http://www.tagesschau.sf.tv/Nachrichten/Archiv/2012/09/26/Schweiz/Session/Agrarpolitik-2014-17-Keine-Tierbeitraege-aber-mehr-Geld

What went wrong with the Swiss agricultural policy?

Last week has been a hot week in the Swiss parliament. The agricultural policy revision was on the agenda.
There is no doubt, the agricultural sector Europe wide has been liberalized despite of the still very high level of subsidies (in Switzerland more then 60% of the farmer's income comes through subsidies) Milk quotas have been abolished, barriers to trade are continuously decreased. What is the effect of this market liberalization? Farmers faced low prices and therefore started to produce more pushing prices even lower. Today Switzerland produces more milk and sugar beets then ever.
On the top of this, Swiss agricultural policies are still based the idea of industrialization of agriculture (a policy that emerged after World War II to insure food security) and gives incentives to farmers to produce even more.
Today's debate is about making agricultural policies that do not support industrialization anymore and that focus on much more sustainable production. The total amount paid to the agricultural sector should remain at the same level, but the distribution of the money will become different. The subsidy per animal for example should be abolished.

In principle a low input agriculture would allow to produce high quality food for the Swiss and European market. This type of agriculture would be much more sustainable. 





The farmer in this movie explains how he organized his low input system. He makes use of nature and his animals to reduce mechanization. His cows are grazing on the meadow. Compared to an intensive system, he does not need to carry the grass to the farm nor to bring the manure back saving on fuel for the tractor and reducing the CO2 emission. Thanks to grazing land management, he has the right amount and quality of grass when needed, and his cows produce about 30 liters of milk per day which within the average without using soya (that is one of the major reason for deforestation) or other fodder than produced on his farm.
He also has a small amount of pigs he feeds with input produced on his farm at zero cost. The stable is organized in such a way that animal warmth stays within and no electricity for heating is possible. Again saving money and improve sustainability.
When the new policy comes, he will be a winner, with his low input system, he will get more subsidies for his environmentally friendly production.

All in whole, the new policy setting incentives for more a more sustainable agriculture. It sets the incentive for a more traditional (opposed to industrialized production) which corresponds to what society wants. Less production will also restore normal prices allowing all farmers to benefit.

So why all these discussions for something that looks so optimal and urgent? Many "model farmers" who were praised years ago as innovative because they invested into a modern and industrialized agriculture are going to loose. They have invested in more machine, bigger stables and are today trapped. They need to pay back the credits that enabled them to mechanize and industrialize their production. It is understandable that those farmers that have followed the policies and strategy of the government now stand up and refuse to loose. Therefore, the change towards low input agriculture should be slow, allowing to farmers to adjust.

This movie is an interesting interview with the the president of the Swiss farmer organization, debating if the new policy will increase or decrease the farmers' income. For sure is only that the new subsidy scheme will change the distribution, and there will be losers and winners. 

Next week the debate will continue in the parliament. It's going to be a hot week in Bern !

Modern traditions : todays livestock transhumance in Swiss Alps

Livestock transhumance has a long tradition in the Swiss Alps. Livestock moves from the valley bottom slowly upwards to the Alps at the beginning of the summer. As fodder is consumed, the livestock moves further upwards. When fodder is consumed on the highest location, or when first snow starts falling, the livestock moves downwards, and somewhere end of September is back at the valley bottom. In order to not carry milk down to the valley, it is transformed into cheese on the Alp. Often there is no electricity in the Alps and therefore cheese is produced manually, without milking machine and using fire to heat up the milk.

Sertigtaal, near Davos, Switzerland

Bringing the livestock to the Alps is therefore time and cost intensive in a world where intensive livestock production implies an industrialized production using imported soja or maize as fodder in a system where most of the cows never see the sky.

Grazing cows in the Sertigtaal near Davos

Nonetheless the tradition of transhumance in Switzerland still exists, and i met a farmer near Davos who showed me how the tradition has been modernized and industrialized.

Nowadays, there are mobile milking machines or milking wagons that make use of a generator for getting the electricity. With the installation i visited, 10 cows can be milked simultaneously. It takes about one hour to milk the 50 cows. The milk is directly transferred to a cooling container.

the mobile milking installation (milking wagon) for 5 cows, two of them are in use

the milking wagon from the side, the farmers stands in between the two "milking wagon" where the cows are standing for getting milked

The farmer does not live in the Alps anymore. Thanks to the good road he can come with is car every morning and evening. He also carries back the milk to the Valley where it will be processed into cheese. Because Alp milk has a special taste and gives particularly good cheese, the milk from the Alps is processed separately to produce Alp cheese, which can be sold above the average cheese price.

in front the tank to bring the milk to the Valley, in the the back the generator

To make it more profitable 6 farmers decided to work together and bring 200 cows of which 50 are dairy cows to the Alps and are managed by one. These dairy cows give an average of 15 litter milk per day and are fed on the alpine grass only.

the generator and the fuel tank

Great to see that even very old traditions can be maintained and modernized!

What's the role of Switzerland in Ethiopia? report from the first Swiss Development Day

The Swiss Ambassador to Ethiopia, Dominik Langenbacher, invited all the Swiss development players to the first Swiss Development day, offering a a great opportunity to network, look for synergies and increase cooperation.
Many NGO involved in education and children were present, but also many NGOs invovled with natural resource management. Also representative from the National Centre of Competence in Research : North-South  http://www.north-south.unibe.ch/content.php/page/id/265 and University of Bern were present.

Thanks to the Ambassador and probably many other people, and maybe also thanks to the drought and the media sharing terrible images from this part of the world, the Horn of Africa is getting on the top of the Swiss political agenda. Next to the emergency humanitarian support from Switzerland to the region, a proposal to the Swiss parliament to be voted in August 2012 is in preparation. This proposal foresees to make the Horn of Africa a program area. This implies that the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), would be running significant projects in this area.

The major focus proposed for the area is agriculture and livelihoods, followed by health and governance. Also two "multilateral topics" for which Switzerland would like to contribute to are : a water initiative and food security. This sounds very promising as good natural resource management and agriculture are nowadays seen as the most contributing to better livelihoods in Ethiopia.

Even if Horn of Africa would not become a program area there is scope for better cooperation between the players, also between the scientific players. The Embassy already announced a meeting with all the scientific players! I hope that this day was the beginning of a better cooperation of the CGIAR (ILRI/IWMI and others) with the Swiss Research and Swiss Development cooperation.

When Swiss farmers become fishermen

Fishery is often seen as an interesting option for farm diversification, especially in developing countries. Indeed, a pond with fish is new source of healthy protein for the farmer and allows to store water for the dry season.

But now, also Swiss farmers have discovered fishery as an interesting option for income diversification. The recent report in the Swiss news shows that some farmers instead of their pigs, are breeding salmon.

Farmers keep the fish on farms only during growing time, when the salmon needs warm water and sell them to the traditional fish industry for the finishing in cold water. Following the report, this is much more efficient and environmentally friendly than making use of the traditional fishery infrastructure, because farmers can make use of synergies. The energy needed to keep the water warm can be made with biogas (livestock) and the waste can be re-used on farm.

Farmers who become fishermen : a model to follow-up.
Watch the report from the Swiss news here :