Resilience of the Swiss food system

Abstract

Increase of magnitude and frequency of climate-related disturbances challenges the Swiss food system. Disturbances such as hot and dry summers in 2003, 2015 and 2018 and extended periods of cold weather in 2013 and 2017 affected Swiss agricultural production. While the regulation of food imports allows ensuring food security for Swiss residents, economic effects of climatic disturbances on the activities of actors operating within the system (e.g. agro-input suppliers, farmers, processors) remains a challenge. On the other hand, the Swiss food system is heavily reliant on state support for its functioning. The reduction of state support, which is a current global trend, would represent a significant shock for the Swiss actors. Hence, this dissertation explored the ability of the Swiss food system to function despite (a) the increasing climatic disturbances and (b) removal of border protection (free trade) with the European Union. To represent the Swiss food system, we chose four value chains: milk, beef, wheat and potato. Resilience of these value chains is essential for the Swiss food system, as they are the base for the traditional Swiss diet and account for 41% of the total agricultural value of the country. The thesis relies on a combination of quantitative surveys among producers, processors and consumers; and a transdisciplinary research approach based on engagement with stakeholders. Paper 1 addresses resilience of four value chains to the effects of potentially introducing a free trade with the EU based on stakeholder surveys and workshops. The results suggest that the Swiss value chains do not possess resilience capacity to secure the current level of self-sufficiency by withstanding the effects of the free trade scenario. Furthermore, we identified that the studied value chains have limited adaptive capacity due to the side-effects (e.g. a strategy of one actor negatively affects other actors) and limitations (e.g. insufficient consumer loyalty) of strategies aimed at coping with the effects of free trade. Also, the results suggest that an increase of specific resilience to the effects of free trade has a potential to decrease overall resilience of the value chains. Paper 2 presents measures to increase resilience of the value chains to drought identified at stakeholder workshops. The measures are mostly focused on the production activity and are aimed to avoid production disruptions and mitigate economic losses among farmers. While some of these measures (e.g. irrigation, drought-resistance varieties, off-farm income) can be implemented by farmers themselves, other measures (e.g. compensating prices, adjustment of quality requirements) require interventions from stakeholders including post-production actors (processors, retailers) as well as consumers. However, our results indicate that such implementation is hampered by conflicting interests, disproportional exposure of actors to climate disturbances and the lack of motivation by the actors to act beyond securing their own operational needs. Paper 3 summarizes results of consumer surveys and stakeholder workshops in order to investigate whether consumers could contribute to the resilience of the food value chains in case of an extreme weather disturbance. The results of the consumer surveys suggest that Swiss consumers favor the idea to pay more for food if farmers are affected. On the other hand, practitioners expressed several concerns regarding feasibility and implementation of consumer support in practice. The results of the studies on both scenarios, drought and free trade, suggest that an increase of resilience in one activity can have negative implications on other activities. Hence, we conclude that resilience assessment and enhancement should be based on systemic approaches that allow capturing broader effects of resilience than those of just individual actors. Furthermore, the results suggest that resilience of the value chains is subject to conflicting interests of value chains’ actors. This emphasizes the need for further research on motivations for actors to accommodate strategies that enhance resilience of their value chains along with the strategies that increase their individual resilience.