Agroscope is the Swiss Confederation's center of excellence for agricultural research and is affiliated with the Federal Office for Agriculture, which is subordinate to the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. Agroscope attempts to contribute to a sustainable agriculture and food sector, and maintain an intact environment.
Agroscope consists of three competence divisions for Research Technology and Knowledge Exchange, and seven strategic research divisions, and the Resources Unit. Sites are Avenches (Swiss National Stud Farm SNSF), Breitenhof, Cadenazzo, Changins, Conthey, Güttingen (Fruit Growing Pilot Plant), Liebefeld, Posieux, Pully, Reckenholz, Tänikon and Wädenswil.
Agroscope recently adopted a new site strategy that plans to construct a central research campus in Posieux (canton of Fribourg), a research centre in Changins (canton of Vaud), Reckenholz (canton of Zurich), and peripheral experimental stations.
Organization The Competence Divisions are: Animals, Products of Animal Origin, and Swiss National Stud Plants and Plant Products Methods Development and Analytics
The Strategic Research Divisions are:
Plant Breeding Plant-Production Systems Plant Protection Animal Production Systems and Animal Health Food Microbial Systems Agroecology and Environment Sustainability Assessment and Agricultural Management
Agroscope's 2022–2025 Work Programme, encompassing over 100 projects, has six core themes or priorities. For each priority, there are strategic research fields (SRF).
Priority – Agriculture in a Changing Climate Priority – Protecting Natural Resources Priority – Agroecological Production Systems Priority – Cost-Efficient and Species-Appropriate Animal Husbandry Priority – Sustainable and Healthy Food Priority – Competitive Food Production
Goals Agroscope researches the entire value chain of the agriculture and the food sector. Its goals are a competitive and multifunctional agricultural sector, high-quality food for a healthy diet, and an intact environment. In pursuing these aims, the research institute gears itself to the needs of its service recipients.
History
History until 1850
Many regions of the Swiss Plateau were dominated for centuries by the three-field technique. This three-span rotation was divided as follows:
1st year: winter wheat 2nd year: summer grain (usually oats or barley) 3rd year: fallow
In each field, farmers possessed an individual acre. It was not a working association of farmers, but of a village community. The three-field did not permit intensive cultivation of livestock. The common grazing on the fallow, the unfertilized Allmend and the stubble fields, and the lack of winter feeding offered only a meager food supply. For centuries, forest trees were debranched for winter feed. Agriculture froze in the three-field.
In the eighteenth century, agriculture began to change. Young country gentlemen took the management of their estates into their own hands and sought agriculture, especially the raising and promotion of livestock. They stopped adhering rigidly to the three-field technique and began with stall-feeding, careful storage of manure, and planting potatoes and clover on the old fields. The common land was parceled out and divided among the peasants. A new goal came to the fore: to keep enough cattle to supply their own country with enough manure. Amid these developments, the French Revolution broke out. The world was open for innovations.Lehmann, Josef 2003:13-15
First stations for education and control (1850–1880)
During the second half of the 19th century, humans had to adapt to the requirements of an industrialized community. Completely new technologies changed their lives and natural sciences offered completely different explanations for life procedures and agricultural production than before.
In the 19th century, Switzerland, therefore, began to find local agricultural institutes. With the new Federal Constitution of 1848, the modern welfare state began to develop. In the 1850s the first, very modest agricultural subsidies were paid to farmers.cf. Lehmann, Josef 2003:19-23
Until the middle of the 19th century, people had to cultivate their bread grain themselves. For the authorities, the major task of agriculture was the self-sufficiency of states with grain. Only until 1860, larger quantities of grain were imported from the Danube countries and overseas.cf. Lehmann, Josef 2003:27
The birth of the research stations (1874–1914)
The federal government's first step towards agricultural research stations was the development of ETH Zurich, where the first two federal agricultural experimental stations were established in 1878: the Swiss Federal Seed Control Station and the Swiss Federal Agricultural Chemistry Experimental Station. Both stations grew very quickly. The Seed Control Station in particular developed into a world-renowned institute. Its founder, Friedrich Gottlieb Stebler, led it expertly and successfully for 42 years. The topics studied included fertilisers and feedstuffs, soils, milk, wines, farm fertilisers, etc. A focal point was the further development of analysis methods.cf. Lehmann, Josef 2003:29 This provided the starting point for the subsequent founding of the Reckenholz location of the present-day Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon Research Station (ART). However, the second location, Tänikon TG, was only opened in 1970, at that time as a research station for rural economics and agricultural engineering.cf. Popp, Hans 2001:4-5
At the end of the 19th century, the vines of West Switzerland were devastated by disease. This marked the establishment of the Vaud Vine Research Station in 1886 and ultimately also the Swiss Federal Research Station in Changins, which resulted from the amalgamation of the Swiss Federal Research Station for Agricultural Chemistry (founded in 1886), the Swiss Federal Seed Control Laboratory (founded in 1898) and the Swiss Federal Vine Research Station (founded in 1915). The Experimental Station for Fruit Production, Viticulture, and Horticulture in Wädenswil had already existed since 1890. The Federal Government took over this station in 1902.cf. Popp, Hans 2001:4-5 These two locations, Changins and Wädenswil, were merged more than a hundred years later to form the Agroscope Changins-Wädenswil Research Station (ACW).
At the end of the 19th century, the federal government built a new experimental station, including a vegetation building and an experimental cheese dairy, in Liebefeld, Bern. The buildings became operational in 1901. Liebefeld thus became the location for the following three stations: the "Experimental Station for Agricultural Chemistry", the "Swiss Dairy Farming Experimental Station" and the estate farm for permits for the sale of agricultural supplies with head office.cf. Popp, Hans 2001:4-5 This head office of the Swiss agricultural experimental and test stations resulted in the Farm Animal Research Station. It moved its location to Posieux FR in 1974.cf. Sieber, Robert; Rüegg, Max 2002:5 The Liebefeld and Posieux locations merged exactly one hundred years after their foundation to form the Agroscope Liebefeld-Posieux Research Station (ALP).
In 1874 the Federal Government build the Federal Foal Centre in Thun for breeding Freiberger stallions. In 1927 ten mares were added, and the foal center became the Swiss Federal Stud. Since 1998 it has been called the Swiss National Stud. Since 2009 it has belonged to the ALP-Haras unit, together with Agroscope Liebefeld-Posieux (ALP).cf. Website Agroscope: Gestüt
This laid the foundation for Agroscope's present three agricultural research stations.
First World War (1914–1918)
During World War 1, Switzerland imported about 85% of the cereal demand.
These bottlenecks particularly in the food supply during the First World War broke out in agricultural research, big changes. The priorities of research, more and more placed on agriculture and issues of grassland and livestock took place in the background.Lehmann, Josef 2003:37-39
Between the World Wars (1919–1938)
After the end of World War I, people wanted as soon as possible return to a free market. This had disastrous consequences for agriculture. During the First World War, the prices of agricultural commodities increased significantly, and later collapsed brutally.
The importance of cereal crops for food security had been detected and forget the bad experiences at the beginning of World War II. Thus, the Federal Council tried shortly after the war to domestic cereal production through an import monopoly, combined with the acquisition of the domestic crop at a guaranteed price to support and protect against the fluctuations of the global market.Lehmann, Josef 2003:51-52
On 1 January 1920, the two research stations "Swiss seed Investigation and Research" and "Swiss agricultural chemistry research institution" were combined. As of this date, it received the new name Swiss Federal Agricultural Research Institute Zurich – Oerlikon (ELVA).Lehmann, Josef 2003:53
Second World War (1939–1945)
To learn from past mistakes and, if possible not repeat them, people responded pretty quickly, as the political situation in Europe worsened. In time war prevention measures were initiated. At the beginning of World War I all wartime measures were taken from case to case out of nothing and had to be put out, one was prepared when the war began in 1939 in various relationships significantly better.Lehmann, Josef 2003:65-66
With the outbreak of war, the Laboratory provided primarily the service of the adaptation and reproduction of agricultural production. End of September 1943, the federal government acquired the good Reckenholz on the northern border of Zurich-Affoltern.Lehmann, Josef 2003:70-71
Post-war years and the impact of the growing battle (1946–1960)
Thanks to the American Marshall Plan enormous sums of money flowed into western Europe. This allowed the so-called "post-war economic miracle." The two to three decades after the war are known as an increasing time of euphoria and increased modernization. Agriculture also was included in an unprecedented structural change, her face changed dramatically.
In 1947, the force during the war price controls lifted and free competition replaced the official price control again.Lehmann, Josef 2003:83-85
Time since 1960
The Farm Act of 1951 emphasized the idea that the overproduction of meat and milk can be avoided by a generous promotion of agriculture, which proved to be deceptive. The situation, particularly in the dairy industry, coined the debates and actions of the agricultural policy in those years. In the European Community (EC) was overproduction a big problem.
During this period, they put the focus of research attention on the development of friendly production methods and improving the quality of the crop.Lehmann, Josef 2003:101-102
New concepts in agricultural politics (since 1996)
The major problems with the current agricultural policy and the changing values of society in terms of environmental awareness and quality of life called urgently for new approaches in the agricultural policy. On 1 January 1999, the new farm bill with the main objectives of "more market, more ecology" was put into force. It had become clear that the company long term was only an environmentally friendly, animal-friendly, and tolerant of the sustainability-oriented mode of production. The target was clear: a comprehensive, environmentally sound, and resource-efficient land management, which complies with the care and preservation of our cultural landscape.Lehmann, Josef 2003:137-138