Article in the newspaper "Berner Oberländer"
Photos of the Field Trips
Report FT1
Agriculture is more than economic sector. ITs a big social factor that unites farmers to care of their environment, branding of region, and traditions. The household we visited have good entreprenerial skills. They are instrumental to diversify family income through tourism, in summer working on cheese, in winter giving milk and working on ski lift. The man said: it’s a hard work, but if you love your work – you do it!
Ia Tsagareishvili
Report FT2
- All the seedproduction of potatoes and grains in Switzerland are managed by cooperatives. The one we visited had a market share of 25%. The cooperative runs like a private business and is owned by the farmers (93% of the shareholders are the farmers that produce for the cooperative/are members – they work in a contract farming system with their own cooperative)
- It takes 15 years for a new variety to get to the first round of plantation.
- Sometimes the farmers trust the private companies more than their own cooperative.
- The family we visited had a traditional labour division: man did the heavy work, woman did some administrative work. The decisions taken for the farm were all taken by both together as an entity – and nowadays even with the consideration of their kids opinion.
Simon Weidmann
Report FT4
Vegetable Production
The purpose of the field visit was to understand the value chain of vegetable production, and to identify the gender division of labor in the sector. There were identified three main links in the chain, at the basis the production, in the middle the gathering and distribution, at the end the final selling at the supermarkets. In terms of findings, there were identified not only occupations with traditional division of labor by genders, but also many activities where both man and woman shared responsibilities. The visit allowed confirming that vegetable production in Switzerland is a dynamic sector, with high technology usage and with an important participation of women in all of the links of the value chain.
The visit started meeting the third generation of owners of the Wysse Farm, Thomas and Christine, a couple that has been sharing responsibilities in the farm production since the husband inherited the property from his parents. Both spouses were raised in the agricultural environment, at the present Thomas is responsible of the farm’s production and innovation, since Christine is responsible for the administration, and human resources management. The small farm has an entire cultivable surface of 19 hec, and a greenhouse surface of 40 (are).The farm has 12 employees, 2 of them hired by a temporary basis. Most of the employees are men because of the necessity to do hard work in the field, while women are most required in classification of the product.
The farm produce, classified, and pack vegetables (lettuce, onions, fennels, egg plants, cucumbers, etc.), according to the requirement of the intermediary FENACO. The Federation is the second link of the value chain and one of the most important Swiss intermediaries. The Federation has more than 16000 individual members, grouped in 400 local cooperatives; the sales reach about 6 billion CH last year. With more than 9000 employees, expenses in human resources represent 50% of the general costs.
FENACO apply quality norms in its processes, the Swiss guarantee and the Swiss Gap Certified. The products are distributed daily to different chain stores; the technical process allows investing less than 24 hours from the reception of products to the final distribution to the supermarket.
The differences in roles of women and men are difficult to see in FENACO, there were seen many shared activities in classification and packaging. As was explained by the manager, probably the main difference is that most of the men are hired in a full job contract basis, while women prefer part time jobs, this differences allowed men to occupy more executive positions.
In conclusion, vegetable production is a dynamic sector in Swiss, with an important female’s labor force participation. Thanks to technology application, the distribution link is the most dynamic in the value chain, processing products in less than 24 hours and providing important amounts of products to consumers through supermarket and also through their own retail stores.
Amparo Ergueta
Report FT5
Family Farming by choice and conviction
The discussion with the three farming families on Tuesday, as well as the farming family we visited in Granges-Paccot, Christoph and Ruth Schmid-Kohli impressed me, as they all mentioned they are farmers by choice. ” I always dreamt of being a farmer” said Christoph, ” and I am living my dream”, while Ruth, his wife said “it is the best job I can imagine, even though I never thought I would chose to become a farmer while growing up on a farm as a child! “. Running her fingers through the wheat flour she had just milled, she asked us if there could be any better feeling than that: knowing they had produced it (biologically) and that people needed, wanted and valued their products. I could feel her strong pride at her and her and husband’s achievements.
Asked about how they shared the work, and took decisions, it became clear that each did what they were best at, and liked most: he was more on the production side of the farm, she on managing the marketing, the contacts to the clients. He had some off-farm work as well, as he liked teaching, but that was not really necessary to complement to income, but it allowed them to enjoy holidays from time to time. As with the couples from the day earlier, their high training level, as well as their continued participation in trainings to adapt to new (policy) challenges impressed me; in particular as well that the women where as highly trained, if not more than the men. On the reproductive side of the work, Christoph is glad as well to be a farmer, and not to work in an office, as that allows him to be flexible with his time and be often with his two kids, i.e. for homework.
Based on what I have heard and seen during the visits, and from the three farming families that came to our F2F, I cannot relate much to what was said in the wrap-up final conclusion of the field trips: “Men do the heavy work and machines, women do the light work”, and as a reason mentioned: “That’s the way we always did it!”, without any further deepening. This might be part of some realties, but does not reflect, nor summarise the complexity we were exposed to: the negotiation of who does what, the love and recognition expressed for each other’s capacities, husband’s and wife’s, and the respect for each other: a strong bond in a team which in all cases seemed to pursue a common goal, which paradoxically was less about economics and profit, and more about happiness and finding the balance. Where my glasses too rosy during the past three days, where are the difficulties? We heard that in case of divorce, it gets though and difficult, as the women and men do not tend to attribute themselves an individual income (expect for tax purposes), that life in the often multi-generational settings brings benefits, but as well challenges, mostly to the women, all of the ones I saw had come to the farm of her husband’s family. Finding the work-life balance was mentioned as well in one case – finding time for holidays, days off, the wish to know other countries, horizons.
Barbara Böni
Report FT6
„It is quality that we sell…“
Martin (53) and Therese (52) Peter-Bauer are running a small farm in the town of Spiez, Switzerland. Located between the mountains and railway, the family farm stretches on 14 ha. It has been in the property of Martin’s family for more than 100 years. He is the manager and the only owner of the farm having bought it for “a quite good price” from his parents. His education in agriculture allows him to manage the farm and educate apprentices who, most often, live and work at the farm.
Martin keeps under his control procurements and deliveries. He is also responsible for the pasture, corn and barley cultivated for silage, and for the cattle: 12 milking cows and 8 calves. During summer, when the cows are on the Alps, the family is busy with seasonal crops: strawberries and cherries in June, raspberries in July, apples and pears in August and September. When a helping hand is needed for seasonal works, the family hires locals, mainly the elderly men and women or younger women who are interested in additional earnings.
At the farm shop, managed by Therese, the family sells cheese, strawberries, apple juice, raspberry syrup and other homemade foodstuff. In addition, the strawberries and other fruits are delivered to groceries. For 500gr of strawberries, nicely packed in paper boxes, Therese gets CHF 3.6. She says that the long-lasting and trustful relations with retailers and bakeries replace any legal contracts. “We provide quality ecological products and, of course, the cost of these products is higher,” she explained.
The state is supporting the small farmers with direct payments. About 20% is the amount that the Peter-Bauers receive annually. Higher in the mountains the farm is located, more increased subsidies farmers receive, reaching even 70%. “We are paid to be farmers,” says Martin smiling. He also explains that their business implies long lasting investments and…perseverance. Martin’s salary depends on costs and revenue and could be “little or nothing”. Therese is luckier. As she manages human resources, the strawberry business and the shop, she pays herself a salary.
Both Martin and Therese are members of the local agricultural cooperative. As members they benefit from a wide range of services such as assistance in pest control, agricultural materials, e.g. seeds, at good price. They also provide consultancy and auditing services for other farmers. According to the manager of the agricultural cooperative Landi Nielsen, it is composed of 180 farmer members out of which only 2 women. Even though women are formally rather not represented at this level, de facto their key role in managing processes and ensuring quality within the farms is obvious.
Natalia Cernat
Report FT7
Chocolate – Report
We visited the Cailler Chocolate Factory of Néstlé in Broc. The female director gave as a welcome speech. After three years of being at the top of the factory, she will hand over her job to a male director in June 2014. This means that the top 7 managers (including the director) will be men. Altogether 106 women (34%) and 207 men (66%) employees produce around 15 Tons of Chocolate every year. In the production section of the firm only men are working. In the research & development and application section men and women are equally represented. When it comes to the packaging sector – where no specific chocolate education/knowledge is needed – more women are working.
When it comes to the customers the director told us that the preferred taste of chocolate does not depend on gender, but it is more significant how you grew up. If you drank a lot of milk as children then usually men and women prefer milk chocolate - which is usually the case for Swiss people. In France, however, generally men and women prefer the dark chocolate with only a small amount of milk. We did not receive any data which gender would buy more chocolate.
In the afternoon we visited the farmer Raphael Sciboz who is producing milk for Cailler. The Chocolate Factory has total 56 farmer partnerships that produce all the milk needed with totally 1775 cows, which all graze within a 30-kilometre radius of Broc.
On Mr. Sciboz farm three families joined together building a new cattle farm for around 1’200’000 Swiss Francs that is fit to the new and tough animal rights protection laws. The three families have 80 cows and around 6000 chicken. All the men of the family are working on the farm and the women do administrative task and work in the household and with the children. They do give an (unpaid) hand to the farm if needed. Nobody of the three families is working outside the farm. Possible risks if the families would spilt up are settled in contracts, however there was no time to find out in detail if men and women would receive the same amount of the property.
Evelin Stettler
Here you can find the most important logistic information about the Field Trips
FT_List of participants.pdf
FT Logistics.pdf
