Growing in size but shrinking in number: Switzerland’s farms are heading in one direction only, and this trend is continuing apace. The Federal Statistical Office recorded 48,344 farms in 2022, a figure which has been on the decline for decades. In 1985, Switzerland was home to 98,759 farms. Over the same period, the area cultivated by each farm has developed in precisely the opposite direction: it has more than doubled and is now 21.6 hectares, on average. The number of farms with more than 30 hectares has skyrocketed over this timespan, jumping from around 4,000 to more than 11,300. Conversely, there are just 7,000 farms managing five hectares or less, compared to more than 32,000 in 1985. The smallholder farmers’ association is seeking to combat this trend. This charitable organisation of farmers and consumers is committed to supporting small and medium-sized farms within Switzerland.
They’re keen to retain diversity – in every respect. ‘Small-scale farms aren’t automatically more sustainable, or large-scale farms less diverse,’ says Patricia Mariani, Co-Managing Director. ‘But farm diversity per se is of great importance, and we need to preserve it.’ Every farm is different and sets its own, individual priorities. Conversely, an area home to large farms has more in common with industrial farming and is commensurately neater.
A vast array of varieties
Farm diversity is also a crucial criterion for Béla Bartha, Managing Director of ProSpecieRara (PSR). This foundation is committed to protecting traditional varieties. Bartha’s efforts to achieve an array of varieties see him take a step backwards – focusing on the stage before plants are grown on farms. ‘First of all, we need seed diversity among producers,’ he says.
Nowadays, there are just a handful of major producers, and convincing them to get on-board with traditional seed varieties is a tricky task. The situation is made more challenging by the fact that, until 2010, farmers in Switzerland were only able to grow and market varieties on a large scale if they were included in the Federal Government’s official list.
Tight regulations
‘Seeds are subject to tighter regulations than almost any other area,’ says Béla Bartha, adding: ‘Before we can even talk about getting more diversity in the fields, we need producers who are willing to create the quantities of seeds required. Plus, we need the right conditions so the relevant varieties can be grown.’ As a result, he also sees providing a greater selection of varieties as a societal endeavour. Today, conventional growing systems aren’t the only option available: there are also alternatives that are better at integrating greater variety into production. ‘People should have easy access to a wide variety of good-quality seeds.’ You need to work with a certain quantity to make producing a particular kind of seed worthwhile. PSR does this by selling different products from the same variety via different channels. They don’t just provide the tomatoes you get on the Coop’s shelves: they also sell the same tomato variety as a seedling in the PSR market or as seeds in hardware stores. We can’t simply assume that major retailers will stock old varieties. In fact, this might initially seem rather dubious: ‘There’s probably no collaboration between a major retailer and a conservation organisation quite like it in Europe,’ says Béla Bartha. He sees it as hugely important for their mission. As he puts it: ‘You can die virtuous, or you can engage in this dialogue.’ PSR wants to make this diversity accessible to a wider audience, using every channel at its disposal to do so. The only way to generate demand is if people come into contact with this diversity when, say, they’re doing their shopping. Ultimately, this also helps make traditional varieties profitable. Despite all the efforts, there is still a gap – and it’s hard to bridge this, financially speaking, via the value chain: PSR tends to work with small quantities of seeds when preserving variants. ‘If a farmer is interested in a particular seed, we first need to increase the volume of that seed available,’ says Béla Bartha. However, it can take four to five years until the desired quantity is reached. ‘This can stifle demand,’ he says. As a result, PSR needs to build up an appropriate quantity of promising seeds in advance, keeping them ready for any producers interested in them so they can immediately start producing them for the trade. In addition, Béla Bartha notes that producing large quantities of seeds also helps boost the quality of the varieties preserved. This advance investment cannot be re-financed commercially. As a result, ProSpecieRara depends on support from foundations for this, too.
More than 5,600 varieties
PSR’s work has protected more than 5,600 traditional varieties. To achieve this, they turn to a network of over 500 volunteer farmers, seed producers and collaborators who protect the varieties in question. They make sure they’re preserved ‘on farm’ (which can also be in someone’s garden). ‘Every year, we grow around a third of all the varieties,’ says Béla Bartha. ‘Our network increases the varieties every year, thereby renewing the seed stocks, and sends part of them back to our headquarters in Basel.’ By being grown time and again, the varieties are able to continuously adapt to an ever-changing environment. ‘Varieties even adapt to the preferences of individual growers,’ he says, ‘as every single person working with us, whether they’re planting up a large field or a garden, has a particular image in mind when choosing plants they want to harvest seeds from later.’ These individual preferences (images of the variety) and growing methods ultimately impact the appearance and characteristics of a particular variety. A region’s climate also plays a key role: in a dry year, characteristics can develop differently than in a wet year. As a result, the variant changes all the time, even though the type is to be preserved as much as possible through ongoing culls. Conserving varieties ‘on farm’ is therefore a dynamic task. ‘We want to retain this dynamism and adaptability within our populations,’ says Béla Bartha. As a result, it’s important to the foundation that lots of people get involved in its conservation efforts. In this respect, PSR doesn’t function as a standard gene bank that multiplies the seeds, freezes them, and only defrosts them every 50 years: this prevents them from continually adapting to the environment.
Preserving knowledge
Exciting prospects
Diversity among producers is contingent upon a diverse customer base. Lots of small-scale and medium-sized farms sell their products directly to consumers and local businesses, such as small village cheesemonger’s, butcher’s and restaurants. Some are even organised as cooperatives, distancing themselves somewhat from the overarching pricing pressures exerted by wholesalers. Direct sales have picked up in recent years. While just 7,000 farms sold their products directly to consumers in 2010, this figure was 12,600 in 2020. Patricia Mariani believes that this is an exciting financial opportunity for small farms, in particular. ‘If you’re working with small volumes, a farm shop can be the perfect channel,’ she explains. ‘A large farm is dealing with much bigger quantities. They need a higher level of frequency if they want to sell everything.’ Farm shops saw an uptick in popularity among consumers during the pandemic, in particular. However, the trend also reveals the limits of this channel. Patricia Mariani notes that desire and reality don’t always overlap: demand plummeted after the pandemic. There are many potential reasons for this. While visiting farm shops can be a laborious, time-consuming task, opportunities can be found on alternative channels. Subscription services that can be purchased online give farmers the chance to deliver their products straight to consumers at regular intervals, while products focused on the catering trade enable farmers to market their wares on their farm itself.
Direct contact with customers
New sales channels go hand-in-hand with new possibilities – and new tasks. Patricia Mariani explains that farmers need to get in direct contact with customers: ‘If they do that, though, they’ll have a real edge,’ she says. ‘They’ll be in direct dialogue with their consumers,’ who can share feedback and appreciation. Plus, the farmer will learn more about what they prefer and what they want – and what they’re not happy with. Farming and food production are becoming tangible; they are no longer merely theoretical concepts. This is crucial. If consumers are to request diversity, they need to know it exists. ‘This is the only way to change consumer behaviour,’ says Béla Bartha. He evokes the range of tomatoes stocked in supermarkets to illustrate this. Twenty years ago, the tomatoes on offer were perfectly round and red. Today, cherry tomatoes, beef tomatoes and yellow tomatoes are all standard options. Even large beefsteak tomatoes are no longer an exotic variety. ‘People say that farmers only eat what they know,’ quotes Béla Bartha. ‘And that’s often the case for consumers, too. They tend to be rather conservative when it comes to choosing foodstuffs. Bringing “new”, unfamiliar products back in the form of traditional, oft-forgotten variants requires a great deal of communications work and persuasion on as many channels as possible.’
A database replete with knowledge
This very knowledge is what Horst Lichtner, Managing Director of the KEDA – Kulinarisches Erbe der Alpen foundation is keen to protect. KEDA runs the Culinarium Alpinium from a monastery building in Stans. The foundation has a turbulent past. Founded back in 2016, it underwent a good few changes before COVID-19 made its work even harder. Various teams spent years trying to find a structure that worked well.
‘I’m the third Managing Director in as many years,’ says Horst Lichtner. ‘My job is to enable people to experience Alpine cuisine.’ He seems optimistic that the trend is slowly but surely stabilising. However, the task is not an easy one. ‘In truth, we’re a start-up,’ he explains. They’ve got numerous projects on the go. The Culinarium Alpinum describes itself as a kind of world heritage site. ‘The Culinarium Alpinum is a highly complex beast. We’ve constructed a catering facility in the monastery, are bringing regional cuisine to life and are trying to develop this towards Alpine culinary culture,’ says Horst Lichtner. In addition, the Culinarium Alpinum team is working on building a knowledge database. They’re still at the start of their journey, but their Managing Director is brimming with enthusiasm: ‘It’s simply fantastic,’ he says, ‘we’re preserving knowledge of regional cuisine. It’s like a kind of edible landscape.’ The knowledge touches on old varieties, but that’s not all it covers. Knowledge about growing them or preparing them – as detailed in recipes that have been handed down – is just as valuable. However, uncovering this knowledge and putting it in a form where it can be conserved is no mean feat. ‘Much of this knowledge is passed down somewhere, and it may solely exist in verbal form. This is the very knowledge we want to preserve,’ says Horst Lichtner. The only way to achieve this is via countless interviews with people.
Turning old into new
The Culinarium Alpinum wants people to be able to access this knowledge. ‘Our aim has got to be to pique people’s curiosity,’ says Horst Lichtner. He thinks there’s room for improvement here: in his view, people aren’t inquisitive enough. Plus, there are countless stories waiting to be discovered and told. There is a huge amount of potential for growth. However, behavioural changes are needed to get people excited about this knowledge. ‘Encouraging people to change the way they act is one of the hardest things,’ he says, ‘but we need to have the courage to forge this path.’ Maintaining the status quo isn’t an option, in his opinion. After all, food is a crucial part of life: every day, we spend hours eating and drinking. It’s about nutrition and pleasure, an experience freighted with emotion. ‘We can use these emotions to connect with people, enthuse them, show them that things taste good and let them smell them,’ says Horst Lichtner. He calls for us to turn away from the supermarket approach, where we’ve got used to seeing strawberries on the shelves year-round – something initially viewed as cultural progress. ‘We need to see things with fresh eyes, and we need to be part of this process,’ he contends. ‘This is the only way our planet has a future.’ Béla Bartha believes that solutions for the future can be found in traditional varieties from the past. He notes that certain old varieties have properties that even make them better suited to new environmental conditions, such as variants from Valais or the Grisons which are used to dry, continental summers. Heirloom cabbage varieties can form basal leaves that spread across the ground. In turn, they can prevent weeds from growing and generate a damp microclimate between the soil and the leaf, protecting it from drying out. Alternatively, there are grains with large root systems that can absorb huge quantities of water and nutrients within a short space of time. These properties are often bred out for efficiency reasons, as they are replaced by artificial fertiliser and watering. ‘It’s clear that preserving these old varieties is a logical approach. This approach is also ripe with potential when it comes to safeguarding our future food supply.’
