2023-06-19 09:31:28
Agriculture
There are always fewer farms but they are getting bigger and bigger
The FSO reveals that in 2022, an agricultural business operated an average of 21.6 hectares of useful land. This is more than twice as much as in 1975.
PostedJune 19, 2023, 11:31 AM
In 2021, wheat accounted for more than half of cereal yield.
AFP
In Switzerland, the number of farms has been halved, while their size has doubled, between 1975 and 2022. While there were some 110,000 in 1975, there are less than 50,000 in 2022 . Among them, 7819 were organic farms, almost ten times more than thirty years ago (896 in 1990). However, this only represents 15% of the total.
These trends are revealed by the “Agriculture and food” statistics from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), published on Monday. She mentions that “farms keep getting bigger. In 2022, an agricultural enterprise exploited an average of 21.6 hectares of usable agricultural area, i.e. an area more than twice as large as in 1975”.
In 2022, the useful agricultural area totaled approximately 1 million hectares, including 726,000 hectares of grassland (i.e. areas intended to germinate plants intended for human or animal consumption). Then come cereals, which are, with 145,000 hectares, the main agrarian crop, reveals the OFS.
And in 2021, the most produced cereal was wheat. It “represented more than half of the cereal yield”. Cereals are used for both human consumption and animal feed.
The area dedicated to the cultivation of legumes remains marginal. Important sources of protein, they are mainly grown for fodder (protein peas, field beans, lupins or mixed with cereals). The OFS nevertheless notes that “the cultivation of lentils intended for human consumption is on the rise”.
Finally, the OFS reports that “the total production of agriculture reached 11.1 billion francs in 2021. It came at the rate of 53% from animal production and 33% from crop production”. The rest consists of ancillary activities and services. In the same year, the average agricultural income amounted to 80,700 francs per farm, i.e. around 1,500 francs more than in 2020.
Last year, the cattle herd numbered about 1.5 million animals. Although it increased by 0.8% between 2021 and 2022, it has 13% fewer animals than in 1996. The number of cows amounted to 681,000 and that of pigs reached nearly 1 .4 million animals.
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