Being a poor farmer in a wealthy country: A Swiss case study

Abstract

Many Swiss farming families face socioeconomic disadvantage despite Switzerland being a wealthy country with instruments of agricultural policy financially supporting almost all farmers. However, official poverty statistics exclude Swiss farmers and scientific knowledge is rare about how such situations are experienced. This article scrutinises the situation of Swiss farming families living in poverty or material deprivation by intertwining qualitative and quantitative methods to enrich both types of data and interpretations. By statistically comparing farmers with the self‐employed in other economic sectors, it uses a novel way of comparing the farming with the non‐farming population. The article shows that the poverty among farmers resembles that of the self‐employed with no or few employees in other economic sectors and describes the lived experiences of poverty and material deprivation. It concludes that adaptive preferences make farming families resilient to socioeconomic disadvantage, while possibly leading to a loss of their livelihood in the long run.

Consumer Trust in Quality and Safety of Food Products in Western Siberia

“…This occurs despite the fact that Switzerland is a wealthy country with efficient instruments of agrarian policy. In eleven out of 32 interviews, respondents indicated that they had to be very careful in managing their food expenses and that self-sufficiency is a way to contain costs [43].…”

Medical economic vulnerability: a next step in expanding the farm resilience scholarship

“…Australia, Chile, and New Zealand) but with a limited social safety net compared to most other Western industrialized nations. Yet, research from Europe, Canada, and Australia indicates that even with stronger social policies, farm households experience challenges meeting their social and economic needs (Chappuis et al 2015;Contzen and Crettaz 2019;Contzen et al 2016;Courtenay Botterill 2007;Droz et al 2014;Roche 2016). Collectively, these findings reinforce contemporary calls (Becot and Inwood 2020;Darnhofer 2021) to expand the types of issues and variables farm family scholars study.…”

Pergeseran Mata Pencaharian Petani

“…Perubahan tersebut dicirikan oleh adanya perubahan pada struktur sosial yang dapat dilihat dari perubahan pada struktur agraria yang semula bersifat komunal menjadi individual dan pola pemanfaatan sumberdaya alam yang berlandaskan kearifan local menjadi berlandaskan inovasi baru. Struktur sosial juga melihat perubahan pada strategi nafkah yang pada awalnya berbasis pada pertanian untuk memenuhi kebutuhan subsistensi akan pangan menjadi berbasis pada pertanian dan non pertanian yang bersifat komersial (Contzen & Crettaz, 2019). Perubahan pada supra struktur sosial juga diperlihatkan pada etika moral ekonomi masyarakat tani yang sebelumnya lebih dominan pada moral ekonomi petani pada masyarakat yang tradisional menjadi politik ekonomi petani pada masyarakat tani yang termodernisasi (Mardiyaningsih et al, 2010).…”