04 - Transformation of the Swiss agricultural sector: current state, target state, success factors

Programme manager

Programme director

Objective

To analyse, describe and model socio-economic transformation in the agricultural sector and its determinants. To define an achievable target state for a resilient, site-adapted and resource-efficient agricultural sector. To identify success factors and structural developments which pave the way from current to target state. To determine and exploit the value-added and cost-reduction potentials while at the time ensuring that the transformation is socially acceptable.

• Specific objectives

  • Identify and describe the effects of the structural transformation of Swiss agriculture with regard to socio-economic and institutional processes and evaluate the effect of political framework conditions on the transformation.
  • Highlight courses of action and promising sustainable and resilient farm strategies in the context of transformation processes (e.g. innovative technologies, new business models) and evaluate their ecological, economic and social performance.
    
  • Evaluate new alternative (including digital) technologies and technologies for generating energy ancillary to agricultural production and reducing fossil fuels, as well as for crops, cropping systems and management practices in terms of their potential impact on profitability and their social and ecological impacts, and show how they can be implemented (e.g. participatory methods, co-creation). 
  • Research factors determining famers’ acceptance of new technologies, cropping systems, environmentally friendly management practices and new working models.
    
  • Research the determinants of farm succession.
  • Analyse the impacts of factors such as investment, innovation and organisational structures on farm profitability and on the overall path to transformation.
  • Demonstrate and evaluate the dynamic distribution of work between family workers, outside staff and contractors.
  • Analyse the value systems and governance structures determining the current agricultural system in terms of their transformation-hindering conservative effect or transformation-promoting effect and identify strategies to accelerate the transformation.

Expected outcomes

Swiss agriculture is a forward-looking sector which deals with large-scale societal changes more proactively than agricultural sectors in surrounding countries, thereby ensuring a socially acceptable transformation.

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