Fashion is with vegetable food. Quinoa, chickpeas or lenses reinvested the plates, and oat, in the form of milk or flakes, has made a place on the breakfast table. In terms of fields, however, in Switzerland the yields and areas cultivated in plant production, and intended for human food, decrease.
Profitability is one of the main problems
This Thursday morning during a press briefing organized in Pearls, near Bienne, the Swiss Union of Peasants (USP), Bio Switzerland and IP-Suisse pointed out the framework conditions that play against the development of these new and innovative cultures. “Profitability is one of the main problems,” noted USP director Martin Rufer.
If traditional productions such as wheat and panic -up cereals, potatoes or rapeseed benefit from customs protection, this is not the case with quinoa, lenses and other new crops. Difficult therefore for these indigenous productions to be competitive and to be profitable.
This is particularly what prompted IP-Suisse to end the Quinoa program, launched in 2015, said its director on Thursday, the Jurassian Christophe Eggenschwiler. The quinoa today marketed in supermarkets therefore comes from abroad, and the low indigenous production which remains remains a niche market which flows in direct sale.
Marginal production in the Jura
In the Jura, lens crops and other so -called innovative products remain marginal. Yet the courtelle agrocent has made it its business for several years ago, and continues to believe in these small seeds.
The agricultural cooperative furtively tested the cultivation of Quinoa, “but the yields were not good and we have encountered problems to sort them,” said the manager of the agrocentor Ignace Berret. Oats, chia and green lenses, however, are always cultivated. For what success? Mixed to hear Ignace Berret. “The consumer does not follow,” he deplores. Less than a ton of green lenses is thus distributed each year by agrocent. It sells elsewhere in the canton in direct sale, but not in industrial quantity, indicates Ignace Berret.
A media rowdy
“There is a big political and media noise around these innovative products, but that is not translated into the plates of the Swiss,” he said. And to continue: “The problem is that attended, while we sell the kilo of green lenses cultivated in the region at 7.90 fr., The consumer pays 6.40fr. The 500 gr. Of Canada lentils at the Coop …”, deplores Ignace Berret.
He does not throw stone into consumers, sometimes victims of retailers who offer strawberries on their shelves in January and no Swiss alternative to Canadian lenses. However, “the day the people decide to follow us, the producers will be there, ready to respond to requests”, continues Ignace Berret. The agrochentre has also equipped itself that all the peasants who want to embark on these innovative productions can sort their production locally in courtelle.
“The Jura follows the national trend and records a decrease in its plant production, especially for wheat and potatoes, indicates the director of Agrijura François Monin. In 25 years, the canton has lost 800 hectares of pannificable cereals,” he explains.
A canton of meat and milk
Agricultural areas, they do not decrease. The fact remains that “it is bovine and dairy production that carries Jura agriculture”, continues François Monin. Because it is it which allows farmers today to make the best margin. The market gardening and fruit culture are few. And to note the paradox: “We would like to increase the security of the supply in Switzerland, by ensuring that people eat fewer meat products and that we dedicate to the plant production of arable land, but there are still too many sticks in the wheels for those who want to embark on this type of culture,” he said.
Faced with insufficient volumes and unattractive margins, few Jura farmers therefore embark on innovative productions. However, according to the director of Agrijura, the development potential for high -added productions exists.