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Two popular initiatives want to put an end to the death of insects and birds in Switzerland: the initiative for drinking water requires that only farms benefiting from non-pesticide direct payments benefit. The initiative "For a Switzerland without synthetic pesticides" wants to totally ban pesticides
The initiative "For a Switzerland without synthetic pesticides" of the French-Swiss Future Association 3.0 was born in June. He wants to not only ban the use of pesticides in Germany, but also import foods containing pesticides.
Already in January, the Drinking Water Initiative was submitted. He wants to remove direct payments from farmers if they use pesticides or give animals preventative antibiotics . The Federal Council recommends rejection without counter-proposal. The initiatives will come to the people at the earliest next year.
Both claims are currently backed by a majority of the electorate: 68% would accept the initiative for drinking water, only 28% would reject it. A ban on synthetic pesticides would even be supported by 72 percent of voters, according to the survey.
Remarkable: With more than 80 percent yes, the initiatives are more clearly supported by supporters of SP, GLP and Greens. But even among the bourgeois voters is a clear majority for the initiative. In the context of the Drinking Water Initiative, 60% of the SVP voters plead for a radical change in agricultural policy.
Franziska Herren, the mother of the Drinking Water Initiative, is not surprised: "It does not matter if she is left or right – many want to give the example!" Biodiversity has drastically declined, worms are rare in many places. "The drinking water is polluted, synthetic pesticides such as Chloridazon are barely built in. The side effects for humans and animals are unclear.This is a much too big risk." In recent years, many medications have been removed because they have noticed that they are more dangerous than supposed.
The initiative deliberately calls for a radical change of course. The plan of action of the Federal Council for Plant Protection, which aims to reduce the use of pesticides, is inadequate, as the limits for dangerous pesticides in the water must be increased.
But the initiative already has an effect: "Farmers and authorities are surprised, are under pressure.Some farmers are already threatening to prefer to abstain from direct payments and to inject more pesticides in a drinking water initiative. "But that they consider a" dubious threat ", since no environmental goal of agriculture is now achieved.
"The Initiative Promotes Purchasing Tourism"
According to Markus Ritter, CVP National Council and President of the Farmers' Association, some farms in the fruit and vegetable industry would continue to use pesticides to secure their crops, even if they had to give up direct payments. The high level of agreement with both initiatives does not worry: "The level of knowledge of the population is still deep. This will change during the debate. "The initiative on drinking water seemed good, but not only on the water, because very many regulations on animal feed and antibiotics were included:" They would also affect massively the organic farms. "
A ban on pesticides means that food in Switzerland would be massively more expensive. "This affects consumers and promotes shopping tourism." The Federal Council's action plan is more meaningful than the extreme initiatives. "This contains 51 measures to reduce the risk of pesticides in half."
Farmer and FDP National Walter Mueller (FDP) says farmers were responsible for spraying. "It's economical because pesticides are expensive." Extreme initiatives would put food production back decades. "People who now want to vote yes, look at the wholesaler only the most beautiful products." Initiatives are a symptom of the society of abundance, in which there is nothing. "I can not imagine people want to go back to the field and grow vegetables because modern, productive agriculture is no longer possible."
In the survey [19659007] 14'851 people from all over Switzerland participated online in the Electoral Poll of Tamedia on June 21 and 22. The survey is conducted in collaboration with LeeWas GmbH political scientists Lucas Leemann and Fabio Wasserfallen. They weighted the survey data by demographic, geographic and political variables. The error range is 1.5 percentage point. More information can be found here.
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