The Federal Council rejects secure food supply
The track record of state interventions in our food system is devastating. The Federal Council remains silent on this — as does any advertising for Swiss meat, eggs and dairy.
At the press conference on our popular initiative «For a secure food supply», the Federal Council does not say a single word about the devastating track record of state interventions in our food system, nor about the far-reaching harmful consequences for our food security and drinking water safety.
It rejects the initiative without a counter-proposal.
Current agricultural policy is catastrophic for our food security, for the environment, for the production security of farming families, and for managing the climate crisis. It promotes the production of animal-based foods five times more with taxpayers’ money than plant-based ones. As a result, agriculture uses 60% of our arable land to grow feed for livestock — making our food supply half dependent on imports. “A war in a major exporting country or a year of extreme weather is enough to jeopardise adequate food supplies for all people in this world,” warns the Farmers’ Union, underscoring the importance of greater self-sufficiency for Switzerland.
But that is not all. The production of animal-based foods is further fuelled by imported feed. Switzerland slaughtered 83 million farm animals last year, half of which were fed with feed from abroad.
The consequences are devastating: the maximum values for fertilisers set in the environmental objectives for agriculture 16 years ago are being massively exceeded. Enormous quantities of liquid manure, the toxic nitrogen-containing gas ammonia, and high phosphorus emissions are over-fertilising Switzerland on a widespread scale, destroying soil fertility, biodiversity, waterways, lakes, drinking water, and with them the very foundations of agriculture and our society.
To ensure our food security and drinking water safety, it is therefore necessary to comply with maximum limits for fertilizers and to reorient the agricultural and food industry toward the production and consumption of more plant-based foods.
The initiative “For Secure Food Supply” now demands that the federal government aim for a net self-sufficiency rate of at least 70%. This requires promoting the cultivation of more plant-based foods “from the region for the region” on our arable land instead of animal feed. Switzerland has sufficient arable land to ensure its food security 100%. Another measure the federal government must consider in order to increase the net self-sufficiency rate is the reduction of food waste. Consider this: one third of our food ends up as food waste today.
Growing and processing more plant-based foods domestically instead of importing them simultaneously creates local jobs and added value. By increasing the degree of self-sufficiency, we create conditions for farming families and the Swiss food industry under which the production of plant-based foods becomes profitable and competitive with imports.
Agricultural policy has been preventing this for decades by using our tax money to subsidize the production and consumption of animal-based foods five times more than plant-based ones: 2.3 billion compared to 0.5 billion francs. This results in 64% of the plant-based foods consumed by the population having to be imported today. For plant proteins such as legumes and nuts, the figure is as high as 98%. The plant-based raw materials for the growing market of meat and dairy substitutes are also imported almost without exception.
Our initiative does not exclude any dietary practice, but demands that the federal government fulfill its mandate of ensuring a secure supply of food and clean drinking water for the Swiss population — by promoting and establishing a new, balanced equilibrium between the production of animal-based and plant-based foods. For the necessary adjustments to agricultural production — which have been long overdue for 16 years in terms of meeting environmental targets — the initiative provides a transition period of 10 years.
The Agricultural Policy from 2030 (AP30+), with which the Federal Council allegedly intends to address our concerns, is no substitute for our initiative. This is already evident from the fact that the Federal Council is concealing from the press and the public the devastating record of state interventions in our food system — despite their far-reaching harmful consequences for our food security and drinking water safety.
To ensure a secure supply of food and clean drinking water for the Swiss population, the strong voice of the people's initiative «For Secure Nutrition» is needed — one that informs the public and drowns out the silence of agricultural policy.
