Harmful Slurry from the «Schweinevalley»
SRF documentary reveals: In Lucerne’s «Schweinevalley», the slurry burden has been tolerated for decades. 16 million farm animals are destroying soil and biodiversity.
Commercials for Swiss meat flicker across our screens, promising high animal welfare standards, sustainability, and abundant domestic feed — the supposed distinguishing factors from imported meat.
But the new SRF 1 documentary «Unser täglich Fleisch» (“Our Daily Meat”) about the «Schweinevalley» in the Lucerne Midlands reveals a very different reality from the one depicted in those advertisements.
16 million farm animals and too much slurry
16 million farm animals now live permanently in Switzerland for the production of animal food products. Around half of them are fed with imported feed such as soya and grain. This results in excessive slurry, nitrogen-containing ammonia gas and phosphorus, massively exceeding the maximum fertiliser limits set in the agricultural environmental targets since 2008. This has been officially tolerated for decades!
It damages forests, soil fertility, biodiversity, lakes and drinking water. In doing so, the agricultural production foundations essential to our food security are also being destroyed.
Initiative for secure food supply
The initiative «For a Secure Food Supply» therefore demands — in addition to more plant-based rather than animal-based foods and the safeguarding of clean drinking water, biodiversity and soil fertility — that the federal government ensures that the maximum limits for fertilisers (nitrogen compounds and phosphorus) may no longer be exceeded. These maximum limits are decisive in determining how many farm animals can be kept in Switzerland without destroying the environment.
| You can help all animals and our planet with compassion. Choose empathy on your plate and in your glass. Go vegan. |
