Drinking Water Initiative: Stop Pesticides and Over-Fertilisation

Pesticides and far too large livestock numbers — artificially inflated through feed imports — are causing serious environmental and water problems in Switzerland.

One million people are currently supplied with pesticide-contaminated drinking water that exceeds the maximum food safety level, in some cases by up to 20 times. Nitrate levels in groundwater throughout the entire Mittelland region are also significantly elevated. Nitrate in drinking water, even below the legal limit, increases the risk of colorectal cancer.Measures targeting agriculture as the primary source of pollution are therefore urgently required. The total toxic cocktail that Swiss farmers apply to fields also takes a severe toll on wildlife. Of all countries in Europe, Switzerland applies the most pesticides per hectare.

Scientists and federal agencies warn that pesticides and over-fertilisation are also seriously threatening the ecology of water bodies and biodiversity.Of the legally established environmental targets, agriculture has to date not fully achieved a single one. In future, over-fertilisation, pesticide use and antibiotic use should no longer be subsidised by the taxpayer.

Liquid manure brings pathogens onto the fields. The suspicion is serious: dairy cows, breeding pigs or horses, but also wild animals such as roe deer, wild boar or hares may have been infected for years with highly infectious bacteria. Liquid manure contaminated with antibiotics can, after being spread on fields, disrupt bacterial communities in the soil and lead to an increase in the frequency and transmissibility of antibiotic resistance.

In wild animals too, the diagnosis of cancer caused by environmental toxins is accumulating at an alarming rate, including over-fertilization, accumulation of heavy metals in soils, pesticides, elevated phosphorus levels in bodies of water, nitrate contamination of water, pesticide residues in drinking water, and so on.

Redirecting harmful subsidies

At the same time, Switzerland subsidizes its agriculture with around 3.5 billion francs in taxpayer money annually. The largest share of subsidies – no less than 82% – flows into particularly harmful animal production that has been artificially inflated through the use of imported feed.The nutritional value of the imported feed could sustain half of the Swiss population.

The Drinking Water Initiative therefore targets subsidies. Instead of continuing to promote environmental, climate, and water damage, taxpayer money should enable a future-oriented, pesticide-free agriculture.

The goal is an agriculture that permanently provides healthy food and clean drinking water, meets its environmental and climate targets, and complies with water protection laws. This has not been the case for decades.

Initiator Franziska Herren

Organic farmers support the initiative

Speaking on behalf of the many supporting farmers, organic farmer Markus Bucher and organic winegrower Roland Lenz expressed their views at apress conference. They emphasized that the know-how for sustainable, water-friendly production has long been available and has been applied by thousands of farmers for decades.“The Drinking Water Initiative represents for me an enormous development potential for farmers and downstream businesses, as well as for research and education” said Bucher. Roland Lenz added that high productivity and ecology are not a contradiction: “Our vineyards are living places where native plants and animals thrive and biodiversity works for us.”

Swiss animal production heavily dependent on imported feed

Currently, Swiss agriculture generates 100’000 tonnes of excess nitrogen through its feed imports,which leads to widespread over-fertilization of water bodies and the landscape, as well as rapid species decline.The natural balance between animal numbers and feed area is central to soil formation.

Swiss farmers are also the largest fine particulate matter polluters — responsible for 37 percent of all fine particulate emissions. Every year, fine particulate matter claims 3’700 lives and causes health costs of 4.2 billion francs in Switzerland (Source: BAFU).

Antibiotic resistance: the greatest health threat to the population

According to the Federal Expert Committee for Biological Safety, antibiotic resistance is the greatest threat to public health in Switzerland. Without antibiotics, intensive care medicine is impossible and many diseases can no longer be treated. The excessive use of antibiotics in intensive animal farming is causing resistance to increase steadily, with the resistant agents being spread on fields and meadows via liquid manure. Prophylactic administration of antibiotics is unnecessary when animals are kept in a manner consistent with animal welfare standards and with appropriate management practices. The prophylactic use of antibiotics in animal husbandry must stop.

The initiative is climate-relevant

The drinking water initiative is not only climate-compatible, but also plays an important — and perhaps insufficiently recognised — role in climate protection. Agricultural production that places significantly less strain on drinking water resources will ultimately also result in fewer greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere.

Climate researcher Thomas Stocker

What the Farmers' Union also conceals: the downstream costs of pesticides for the environment and public health must today be borne by the general public.