Archive

In recent years, plant-based foods have come on the market as alternatives to products of animal origin. Their aim: to positively influence sustainability and health. However, do they really do this? A study conducted by Agroscope and the University of Bern examined the issue.

Do soils under meadows and pastures in Switzerland take up more carbon than they release, thus contributing to climate protection? According to a new study from Agroscope, they currently do not. Measures to promote carbon storage do, however, exist.

Future agricultural policy will aim at innovative and sustainable production systems. Using the example of agroforestry, an assessment method based on an expert survey and the literature has now been tested. The results show that agroforestry can support the transformation into a more sustainable agricultural sector.

What do ecological focus areas in Swiss farmland contribute? Agroscope experts summarised their impact on biodiversity and ecosystem services in a literature survey.

Managing farmland as an Ecological Focus Area (EFA) has a positive impact on its biodiversity. Agroscope has now investigated the effect of implementing this agri-environmental measure on non-EFAs.

The newly designed Swiss agri-environmental monitoring programme ‘MAUS’ aims, as far as possible, to determine environmental impacts for regions and farm types with existing data. The first MAUS report deals with the regionalised nitrogen balance.

Pre-emptive biological control involves the evaluation of the benefits and risks of the natural enemies of an invasive pest in advance of its arrival, allowing the swift approval and deployment of the natural enemies in an emergency.

Agroscope studied various categories of ecological focus areas and showed that the presence of these in connectivity projects makes a major contribution to large-scale species richness in the agricultural landscape.

Whether grasslands are mown or grazed, fertilised or unfertilised – all this affects the ecosystem services of Swiss grasslands. These services benefit both the agricultural sector and society, e.g. in the form of livestock feed or erosion protection.

In vegetable row crops, spot spraying can save on insecticides and fungicides. Agroscope investigated the extent of this savings potential and compared the cost of spot spraying to broadcast treatments with a field sprayer.

The advantages of grass-clover mixtures in ley farming are manifold. An Agroscope study now shows that their highly efficient use of available nitrogen also keeps the risk of nitrate leaching low.