Swiss Review 2/2021

Swiss Review / April 2021 / No.2 16 Reupborirkt fruits. But the farm’s niche product is its Rhaetian grey cattle meat, which represents around 30 percent of their revenue. In 2018, Georg was granted the right to have his calves slaugh- tered on the farm, whichwas a first for Switzerland. The animals are killed and bled out on site by a butcher. This practice avoids the stress generated by transporting them to the abattoir. Here, the calves feed on theirmother’s milk for 12 months and are killed at the age of two. The packaged meat is home delivered. Malans: a farm for male chicks Further down the Rhine, we arrive in Malans with its south-facing vines. The snow has vanished from the or- chards here. In an areawhere a square metre of land is worth its weight in gold, Valérie Cavin, born in the canton of Vaud and raised in Zurich, culti- vates half a hectare of vines with her partner, Roman Clavadetscher, from the canton of Grisons. Their bottles of pinot noir are in great demand, but the niche product here comes in the form of male chicks, not killed upon hatching, but raised alongside the fe- males in four little mobile huts, each housing 500 birds. “High-class restau- rants buy the male chickens from us, which means they can tell a story to their clients about the dishes. Other customers make this choice for ethi- cal reasons and they pay a higher price for our eggs in order to help sup- port the farm,” explains Valérie Cavin. Another niche is the production of or- ganic garlic, which requires intensive manual labour. In 2020, the Malans farm produced three tonnes. Both graduates in agronomy, this farmer and her husband state that only 10 percent of their revenue comes from public subsidies. Because here, crop cultivation does not depend on the same subsidies as mountain pastures. Having arrived inMalans in 2003, the couple have retained external posi- tions: she is a teacher in the agricul- ture sector and he is an organic advi- sor. “This choice grants us more freedom and security, in case we lose our potatoes to the frost, for example,” explains Valérie. Buoyed by the increased support of the Confederation, the organic movement is spreading fromvalley to valley. “But the choice to make this transition remains one of the heart,” believes Claudio Gregori. At least the farmers we met in Grisons seem to think so. The use of chemicals is effec- Grisons’s organic sector in figures At the end of 2019, the canton of Grisons counted 1,291 organic farms, including 1,255 bearing the Bio Bourgeon label, out of a total of 2,067 farms overall. This means that 62.5% of farms are organic. This is the Swiss record both in percentage and in absolute terms. In Switzerland, organic produce represents ap- proximately 10% of the food market. (SH) tively cutting off the hand that feeds. Land cultivated organically ismore re- silient. What’s more, the real cost of organic farmingwould be lower if the external costs of intensive farming – the waste products – were factored in. “In the end, it is the food choices of Swiss consumers that will set the pace of this transition,” concludes Georg Blunier. Valérie Calvin and Roman Clavadetscher tend to their sun-drenched vines in Malans. Photo: Mayk Wendt © swisstopo An organic farming tour of Grisons: the Las Sorts farm and its potato fields in the Albula valley; cereals and Rhae- tian grey cattle on the Dusch organic farm near Paspels; the sunny vineyards of Malans – our final, mostly northerly stop.