Swiss farmers are starting the new year with concern. They reiterated on Friday their demands of recent months: better salaries and less paperwork.
KEYSTONE
“Incomes are stagnating, the gap between peasant families and the rest of the population is widening,” lamented the Swiss Union of Peasants (USP), the Swiss Union of Peasants and Rural Women (USPF) and the commission young farmers during a press conference organized on a Bernese farm in Kirchberg.
Farmers work between 60 and 66 hours per week for a salary of less than 5,000 francs per month, they explained. In this context, foresight often falls by the wayside. This strong economic pressure has an impact on the psychological health of farmers, underlined USP director Martin Rufer, recalling the higher than average rate of depression and suicide in the sector.
The government must “take its responsibilities”
The agricultural umbrella organizations call on the Federal Council to “take its responsibilities” by guaranteeing farmers a sufficient income, but also by reducing the administrative burden.
They also call on actors in the value creation chain to ensure that revenues generated by farmers’ products cover production costs. Prices are too low, especially in crop production, dependent on fluctuations due to climate change.
The USP is already positioning itself against the initiative for environmental responsibility on which the population must vote on February 9. “It would disrupt Swiss agriculture ecologically, but would not change anything in terms of consumption. Imports would simply fill the gaps,” said the president of the umbrella organization, Markus Ritter.
The situation was particularly tense in 2024 in the agricultural world, which mobilized across Europe and Switzerland. Farmers demonstrated with their tractors in the streets of Geneva at the start of the year.
