Vote analysis: ecological initiatives often fail due to resistance by Swiss farmers

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-politics/vote-analysis-ecological-initiatives-often-fail-due-to-resistance-by-swiss-farmers/87595550

Posted by Realistic-Lie-8031

8 Comments

  1. From my discussions with them, they don’t really understand, or care about the initiatives. What I get is usually:

    * They don’t want to be told what to do by “the people from the cities”
    * They believe they know better how to care for the soil, animals, and biodiversity than those who have spent their time learning theory in universities.
    * Tradition matters—a lot of them say, “If it worked for my father without problems, why should I change?
    * Organic farming is for weak hipsters from the city. Real men drink pesticide directly from the source and are unaffected

    Note it’s not all of them, many of them are progressive. Mostly the one who have direct producers – customers relationships, such as the wine makers: many changed the way they work to be more sustainable and use minimal intervention.

  2. this time though, I voted no not because of the ecological protection aspect but because of heritage protection. We already have one of the strictest policies concerning the protection of heritage sites, we don’t need more of that.

  3. Psilocybeazurescens1 on

    Well the outcome of referendums matters as much from the subject as it does when the referendum is done.

    People read ecological/biodiversity (not arguing if its correct or not) and associate it with higher cost, redtape, some sort of tax etc. So obviously in this relatively difficult economic period its not gonna pass. Same as the 2nd pillars reform.

    Another example is the nuclear ban in 2017, if it was voted on this year or the last couple of years it wouldn’t (I think) have passed because people would have seen the cost associated with it, the German mistake of doing the same and getting fucked by skyrocketing energy prices.

    Its simply the way it is for a direct democracy, in 5 years or less there is probably gonna be another similar referendum on the matter

  4. Wild-Substance-3017 on

    Not all ecological initiatives are good ideas, or good for the environment.

    I’m not in a farmer’s head, but I think I would not be happy if my way of producing food was critized by people from the city who thinks they are “eco” because they just bought a new telsa with the tax break that comes with it.

    My observation is that none of the parties care about the environment. It’s just another way to push their ideology. They probably would be more successful if they actually did care.

  5. Background-Estate245 on

    I don’t think it’s the farmers. They are too little in numbers to have that impact in a vote.

  6. They fail because they are too “extreme”. People anthropomorphize the needs of the animals (and nature in general) and they over do it. Plus they don’t balance the human needs over the animal needs and they don’t get any farmer’s input.

    The best example is the distance between lanes in the crops… It has to be moved from 50 cm to 80 cm so that animals can pass freely without any problems… Sure, I am a rabbit… That lane is only 50 cm, I won’t be able to pass through there because I am missing 30 cms, gosh damnit.

    I am not saying we shouldn’t care about the animals, we should just give them more merit to their ability to adapt and act accordingly. It’s not about humans having zero impact on anything, but finding a sustainable balance… And of course not being greedy.

  7. True, but this one I voted no because of the nasty NIMBY clauses sneaked into it, classifying urban landscape (aka buildings) as biodiversity, which would essentially block any new development, densification, etc. aggravating even more the lack of housing.

    Pure dishonesty of the organizers.

    Besides that, it was also too rigid and lacked flexibility to allow for sustainable development.

    Oh, and fuck farmers. They’re by far the wealthiest and most spoiled and subsidized voting group.