The Farm and the FarmerThe Landscape of Fair MilkLeonie Füssler, Ramon Oetterli, and Patrik Willen

19,000 dairy farms produce a total of remarkable 3.4 million tons of raw milk throughout the year on Swiss territory. Most of it is processed by a few well established big players in the market: Emmi, Cremo, Hochdorf, Elsa and Züger. These corporations are tightly entangled with the major food distributors in the country, which consolidates their domination in the industry and allows them to set the milk price standards. Only a third of the milk is processed by smaller village dairies, of which approximately 6.5 % are located in the alpine region and whose production focuses on cheese.

The pre-alpine region of Zimmerberg above Lake Zurich has a repetitive landscape pattern: stripes of pastures, that are confined by both natural boarders and artifical boarders.

Against the background of our research findings on milk production in Switzerland, we approached farmers in the Zimmerberg region to explore the status quo and obtain valuable first-hand information. The discussions with farmers reveal their individual solutions to stay in business despite the tough economic conditions.

The region of Zimmerberg has a long tradition of agricultural practice. Today there are hundreds of old agricultural buildings, mostly under monument protection. Whilst some of them are still in agricultural use, others are the remains of farm dieback and are today converted for a different use.

The current trend in the dairy industry is go up or go out. Small farm enterprises therefore disappear increasingly. But even large and expanding farms struggle for economic survival.