The Swiss farming sector is a good example of an agricultural system that creates a number of non-market goods in addition to producing food. The ‘Socioeconomics’ Research Group takes up where social factors are affected in addition to ecological ones. A main focus here is the creation of a comprehensive understanding of agricultural work, which has numerous facets, ranging from the demands made on the family workforce, to the working conditions for outside labour, all the way to new developments such as solidarity-based agricultural initiatives.
Within the context of transformation research, Agroscope deals with changes in the agricultural profession, both in terms of society‘s changing demands and digitalisation. The Group also makes key work economics figures available in the form of online applications such as LabourScope. Producers use these data to calculate working-time requirement as well as for farm planning and development, for example, in order to compare existing technologies with smart farming technologies.
