Agriculture in Switzerland

Agriculture in Switzerland, one of the economic sectors of the country, has developed since the 6th millennium BC and was the principal activity and first source of income until the 19th century.

Framework of rural society, agriculture has as main factors the natural conditions (climate), the demographic evolution and agrarian structures (institutional and legal norms).

The practices of agriculture in the narrow sense of the term (open land) and animal husbandry, the manufacture of polished stone tools, ceramics and millstones are directly associated in the Early Neolithic sites.

[1] In Roman times (50 BC to 400 AD), the main innovations were the simultaneous appearance of walnut and chestnut plantations, the introduction of crops of hemp and rye (still rare) and probably vines (viticulture).

Aside from the extension of cultivated fields, meadows and wooded pastures, there is no real break in the development of vegetation between the Iron Age and Roman times, which probably reflects a permanent agro-pastoral practices.

A major change in the evolution of the plant cover is not detected before the year 1000, which pleads in favor of continuity between the Roman period and the High Middle Ages.

[1] For the High Middle Ages, many questions still remain open, given the almost complete silence of written sources related to landed seignory and the scarcity of archaeological research devoted to rural areas.

As the legal sources use a detailed vocabulary for cattle and pigs, the majority of historians admit that breeding had a greater weight than it will have in the following centuries, but there was no specialization yet, as the breeders also practiced plowing around their farms, extensively and individually.

This development did not affect the high altitude areas, which were not very favorable to cereals; In the Alps and especially in the Pre-Alps, there was a specialization in animal husbandry from the 14th century onwards, under the influence (at least in central Switzerland) of ruling families who increasingly oriented themselves towards the urban markets of Northern Italy (cattle trade).

It favored regionalization on a large or small scale, for example in eastern Switzerland: vineyards in the Rhine valley, livestock in Appenzell, cereals on the Plateau.

As for the bourgeois, they invested in the lands close to their city to produce easy-to-sell goods there: wine, meat, vegetables, fruit, flax, hemp and tinctorial plants.

[2] Despite the proto-industrialization that began in the late 16th century, the agricultural sector remained by far the most important branch of the Swiss economy throughout the early modern period.

Although there is a lack of statistical data of sufficient quality, this seems to apply to all relevant variables: the capital stock, investments, quantity and value of production and finally also the number of people employed in agriculture.

[1] With the exception of heavily exporting livestock areas, Swiss peasants worked mainly for their own consumption, a little for regional markets and rarely beyond.

The majority of the rural population derived only ancillary income from the regional agricultural market and depended for their survival on the wealthy minority.

In many areas of open land the production of grain increased in proportion to the population, as is shown, for example, by the tripling of the yield of tithes at Lucerne between 1500 and 1700.

In the 18th century, the extension of work at home procured accessory earnings and new means of existence for poor families, who launched themselves with all their might into industry while cultivating a cramped estate.

In the industrial society, agriculture increasingly became a distinct sector, though well integrated into the national economy through the market and through upstream and downstream activities.

[1] Faced with industrial growth, the agricultural sector shrinks, despite or because of its increased productivity: it employed around 500 000 people around 1860-1880, 250 000 around 1960, 125 000 around 1980, i.e. 60% of the active population in 1800 and 50% in 1850 (estimates), 31% in 1900, 19.5% in 1950 and about 4% in 2000, including, from 1950, part-time workers.

However, these figures do not really reflect the weight of agriculture, because they do not include the industrial activities located upstream and downstream, which became increasingly important in the 20th century.

The dairy industry began to dominate; animal husbandry and agriculture were essentially their suppliers, slaughter cattle and pigs its by-products.

[1] After the First World War, the supply difficulties encountered during the conflict and the cost of dairy monoculture, as soon as cheese exports began to decline, led the authorities to favor cereals at the expense of milk, but without big success.

This is a third agricultural revolution, based on the success of livestock farming, motorization (in 1992 the number of tractors equaled that of full-time farmers) and the ever greater use of chemical fertilizers and phytosanitary products.

However, Swiss agriculture is largely dominated by meadows and pastures, which make up three-quarters of farmland, with cereals and vegetables being confined to the lowlands.

[3] On the Plateau, agriculture is focused on grain (barley, oats, rye and wheat), potato, maize, sugar beet and, increasingly, rapeseed cultivation.

It should also be noted that the proportion of the land devoted to pastoral pursuits increases, like the rainfall, from the west to the east, so that it is highest in Appenzell and St. Gallen and lowest in Geneva and Vaud.

[7] The primary sector occupies a minimal place in the Swiss economy because the costs do not allow sales abroad without state aid amounting to billions of francs.

[8] Historically, this integration of agricultural policy into the Swiss institutional framework is explained by the need to ensure the country's food independence within a conflicting European geopolitical space.

In addition, since 2004, they are required to take measures to limit the impact of their activities on fauna and flora such as mowing in strips or starting inside to finish outwards and not grinding immediately after cutting.

Previously, during a popular initiative submitted to the people on 27 November 2005, the Swiss voted (55.7%) for a five-year moratorium on the use of GMOs, thus opposing the will of their government at the time[15] and validating an application of the precautionary principle endorsed at the 1992 Rio Summit.