Swiss Review 2/2021

Swiss Review / April 2021 / No.2 9 mitted threshold. Oneway to reduce the chlorothalonil is to dilute it with uncontaminated water, while a water cooperative in the Bernese Seeland region aims to eliminate it using an innovative filter. This only goes part of theway towards solving this serious problem, says Würsten, because it works against the princi- ple that groundwater in Switzerland should not undergo complex treat- ment processes. Voters to decide on two initiatives Würsten andhis colleagues fromthe 4aqua group therefore support the CleanDrinkingWater initiative that will be put to the people on 13 June. According to the proposal, submit- ted by a non-party pressure group, government subsidies should in fu- ture only go to farmers who refrain from using pesticides and adminis- tering antibiotics to livestock. Vot- ers in June will also decide on an in- itiative called “For a Switzerland free of synthetic pesticides”, which wants to ban the use of pesticides in Switzerland completely. The ban would also apply to the import of food produced using pesticides. According to the Swiss Farmers’ Union (SFU), both initiatives goway tion, thereby seeking to take the wind out of the sails of the initiatives ahead of an emotive voting cam- paign. In any case, the votes taking place on 13 June already look like a referendum on the future of Swiss agriculture, regardless of whether Swiss drinkingwater is clean or not. Clean Drinking Water initiative: https://www.initiative-sauberes-trinkwasser.ch/ Pesticide initiative: https://lebenstattgift.ch/ Campaign opposing both initiatives: https://www.extreme-agrarinitiativen-nein.ch/ too far. The SFU says that theywould make domestic and regional farm- ing more difficult if not impossible. If farmers were forced to stop using pesticides altogether, production would fall by at least 30 per cent. The SFU even warns that Swiss crops like potato, rapeseed, and sugar beet could almost become a thing of the past. Not all farmers share these fears. The federation of Swiss or- ganic farmers, Bio Suisse, supports the pesticide initiative because it says the initiative reflects the core values of organic farming. It ismore sceptical of the Clean Drinking Wa- ter initiative, which also states that farmers should only be permitted to keep as many animals as they can feed with self-produced fodder. Small organic producers could suf- fer as a result, says Bio Suisse. The Federal Council and amajor- ity in parliament recommend that voters reject both initiatives. In their view, the initiatives are damaging to agriculture and jeopardise Switzer- land’s food security. The govern- ment has set out a new, greener ag- ricultural policy to tackle pesticides from 2022. However, the Council of States blocked the strategy and pre- fers a softly-softly approach to deliv- ering better groundwater protec- Our daily water One hundred and forty-two litres. This is the average volume of drinking water that a single-person household in Switzerland consumes per day – of which more than half is used for showering, bathing, and flushing the toilet. Total per capita water consumption – encompassing the agricultural, industrial and commercial sectors – has been falling steadily over the past decades: from 500 litres per person per day in the 1970s, to around 300 litres today. Water-saving household appliances have played a role in this regard, as has the relocation of manufacturing facilities to other countries. Swiss water companies supply around a billion cubic metres of water per year. (TP) Both initiatives specifically take aim at agriculture and its use of pesticides. Crop production would fall by at least 30 per cent without pesticides, says the Swiss Farmers’ Union. Photo: Keystone