STÉPHANE HERZOG At the entrance to the village where the Hofmann family farm is located, the Villars-sous-Yens (VD) village nameplate is still upside down, a reminder of the demonstrations in February that stirred up Swiss farmers – who stand in solidarity with French farmers – to fight for greater recognition. “The world has gone topsy-turvy,” says writer and winemaker Blaise Hofmann, the author of “Faire paysan”, an essay published in 2023 about the living conditions of Swiss agricultural workers. Some 1,500 farms have disappeared every year in Switzerland for the past ten years. That works out at four a day. “An entire facet of the world is vanishing – actions, smells, sounds, tastes, expertise, behavioural skills – and we’re acting as if nothing has changed,” says this farmer’s son and grandson, whose great-grandfather committed suicide. Other farmers have done the same in recent years. We stop in at the family farm, located in the heights of Morges, to say hello to Hofmann’s parents. Walti and Anne-Lise greet us with a big smile. In their kitchen, a famous colour print hangs on the wall: “Le labour dans le Jorat”, by Eugène Burnand. “A member of my family is in The author sounding the alarm on the poor deal for farmers Author and winemaker Blaise Hofmann paints a portrait of the hard life of agricultural workers in his work “Faire paysan”. He pleads in favour of keeping Swiss agriculture at a human scale. this print,” remarks Hofmann. This man of letters and seasoned globetrotter was born in 1978 and has worked as a journalist, shepherd, nursing assistant and teacher. The farm itself is still in operation. Patrick, one of Blaise’s cousins, cultivates its roughly 40 hectares. There is one thing missing from the picture: cows, and the manure that goes with them. “In the country, dowries used to be calculated based on the size of the manure heap outside the parents’ farm,” the Vaud native writes. He stresses that Switzerland has always had more cows per inhabitant than anywhere else. His cousin Patrick Blaise Hofmann, writer, traveller and winemaker. This man of letters also worked as a journalist, shepherd, nurse and teacher at various points in his life. Photos: Stéphane Herzog Swiss Review / July 2024 / No.4 30 Profile
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