VineWork

Transition towards low-plant protection production in Swiss viticulture and its socio-economic implications for farms and farmworkers

Background and Goals

Switzerland is striving to reduce the associated risk from plant protection product usage in the agricultural sector by 50% by 2027. A viable solution towards the reduction of plant protection product usage is a large-scale transition to production systems with a reduced pesticide application. Despite the major potential benefits associated with an uptake of such systems, overall adoption of these practices remains low. The acceptance, or lack thereof, can be attributed in part to profitability concerns and other conflicts of interest with workload.

The project VineWork analyses the feasibility of a transition towards production systems with reduced plant protection product usage in Swiss viticulture and their socio-economic effects on farms and their hired farm workers. The project focuses on Viticulture in Switzerland, due to its both labour and plant protection product-intensive nature.

VineWork intents to explore which production measures are undergone to reduce the use of phytosanitary products, which barriers and catalysts for their adoption exist, and the effects of these measures on labour demand, and the role that state, federal and private regulations and partnerships play in their uptake. The effects on working conditions and income of farm workers, as well as the labour market, are also investigated. In order to create a holistic representation of the research questions, surveys and interviews with winegrowers, hired workers and other industrial actors will be conducted on which both qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods will be implemented.

We are an interdisciplinary team from the research groups; Agricultural Economics and Policy (AECP) and Food Systems Economics and Policy (FSEP) from the ETH Zurich. 

Work packages

The project will be divided into four work packages. WP1 deals with ecological and socio-economic trade-offs and their conceptualization. While WP2 focuses on the farmers' perspective, WP3 analyses the effects on the workforce. WP4 synthesizes the results and offers recommendations for policy and industry. Further information on the individual work packages and research results will be published here at a later date.