Biodiversity

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Biodiversity: achieving a great deal together

Ever fewer insects, birds and other wild animals and plant species facing extinction – biodiversity is on the wane. We can all do something about this and even small things can make a big difference. The agricultural sector is also getting involved. After all, it is particularly dependent on insects as members of its workforce.

The extinction of species has numerous causes. One of the main reasons is that human activity is having a negative impact on natural habitats. Whether this be by building up extensive areas, straightening river channels, draining wetlands or employing intensive agricultural systems. However, we are all dependent on the diversity of nature, with this being especially true for those involved in agriculture. It plays an important role in the pollination of crops by bees and insects. And various beneficial insects help to keep pests in check. It is for this reason that a change of thinking came about a few years ago. Today, the promotion of biodiversity is a prerequisite for any farm wishing to receive direct payments, with these enterprises being required to create biodiversity priority areas on at least 7% of the area used for agriculture. Effectively, this amounts to 19% when voluntary areas are taken into account, corresponding to 192,000 hectares or an area roughly the size of the canton of St. Gallen.

What agriculture does

This 19% comprises various elements: extensive, flower-rich meadows, hedges, standard trees, piles of stones or branches and fallow land, just to name a few examples. Each of these provides a habitat and/or food for different animal and plant species. Further information on various elements of biodiversity promotion on farms can be found here. Ideally, the various elements are interconnected, meaning that the wildlife can move around. This is the case for more than three-quarters of the current biodiversity promotion areas in the agricultural sector. Farming families can also take steps to preserve wildlife on their productive land by using optimised mowing technology, reducing their use of pesticides or employing alternative treatment and cultivation methods. The aim is to find the optimum approach for ensuring sustainable food production.

Biodiversity concerns everyone

Every garden, no matter how small it may be, can promote the diversity of nature. The same also applies to balconies. We provide you with some tips in this regard below:

Leave the grass

Leave the grass in one part of your garden and only mow it once or twice a year. A special mixture made up of many different domestic flowering plants is particularly valuable for insects.

Trimming hedges in winter

Plant hedges comprising native shrubs and cut them back in the winter. This ensures there will be no birds nesting in them.

Create habitat

Create habitats for small animals like hedgehogs and lizards with piles of branches, leaves or stones or a loose stone wall.

Create a pond

Birds and insects greatly appreciate small ponds and other water sources.

Build hotel

An insect hotel and a bird house can provide additional opportunities for «nesting».

Image: Christine Dobler Gross

Passage in the garden

Thanks to passages incorporated in garden walls at ground level, small animals can enter and leave your property freely.

No pesticide

Do not use weed killers or pesticides. If this is unavoidable, then use biological means. Take special care when using products for slug and ant control: these are usually very poisonous!

No lighting

Do not light your garden at night. This will benefit nocturnal flying insects.

Native plants

Only allow plants native to Switzerland to grow in your garden. Planting rare varieties of fruit, berries or vegetables will help to ensure their survival.

Leave lying

Don’t go over the top with tidying up: withered flowers, woody plant parts and leaves in a state of decomposition provide food and habitats for many insects and other small animals.

Dispose in waste

Combat plants introduced from other countries and regions, such as goldenrod and Japanese knotgrass, which displace the native flora. Dispose of them in your general waste, not in the compost heap!

Cat with bell

Some 1.72 million cats live in Switzerland. They not only catch harmful field mice, but also birds, slowworms, lizards and shrews, among other animals. If you put a bell on your cat, this provides birds and other species with the chance to retreat to safety.

Other tips

People who are not involved in agriculture or who don’t have a garden can also play their part. By buying seasonal food sourced from Switzerland, you can support the efforts of local farming families to promote biodiversity. The more label products that make their way into your basket, the greater the contribution. This is because enterprises that produce label products demonstrate an above-average level of commitment to promoting biodiversity. Drinking apple cider sourced from fruit grown on standard trees also helps. And finally, there are associations that work to protect species where you can become a member or donate money.

Valuable chaos

Wildflower strips are perennial areas found on arable land that are sown with native wild herbs. To the untrained eye, these areas may appear chaotic or unkempt. However, us farmers put a great deal of work into ensuring that these wildflower strips can help to promote biodiversity in the long term. We sow a mixture of seeds containing rare native wildflowers and wild herbs such as gold of pleasure and weasel’s snout. The strips are left on the field for between two and eight years. During this time, we have to inspect these areas regularly and remove problem weeds such as creeping thistle or couch grass by hand to stop them from taking over. Hares, skylarks and various insect and bird species feel at home in the wildflower strips.

Green windbreaks

Hedges are one of the most species-rich habitats found in our cultural landscape. They provide wild animals such as red deer, foxes and badgers with cover and protection from danger and also offer a valuable place for hibernation. What is more, they provide a rich supply of food for birds and insects with various berries, nuts and leaves, which in turn also attracts larger members of the wildlife community. For us, hedges serve wonderfully as a natural means of demarcating plots of land, while also offering protection from the wind for crops and acting as a connecting element between various biodiversity promotion areas. We farmers regularly cut back fast-growing bushes in order to maintain a certain level of biodiversity.

Mown late to protect the animals

Extensive meadows are unfertilised meadows that can be found on dry or moist sites. They provide an important habitat for many plant and animals species, including orchids, gentians, spiders, beetles, lizards, slowworms and grasshoppers. The fact that no fertiliser is employed serves to promote plant diversity. We cut these meadows extremely late, only starting from mid-June. This is how we enable animal species to reproduce. When mowing the meadows, we make sure that we mow from the inside out, thus allowing the animals to escape. And at every step we leave between five and ten percent, meaning the animals have the opportunity to retreat. The hay is rich in rough fibre and well suited for both horses and sheep.

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