Switzerland, where half a million cows graze under a strict animal welfare policy, practices sustainable livestock farming to clean up forests, protect biodiversity, improve soil quality, and prevent flooding. The Swiss have not invented anything: grazing and agroecology.
Concern for animal welfare is a priority issue for some countries. Thus, in 1954 Argentina enacted its law against Mistreatment and acts of cruelty to animals , and India did the same in 1960 with its Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Law. Some regions are more advanced than others, but the phenomenon is global.
Countries such as Tanzania, Nigeria, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Ethiopia, Niger and the Philippines stand out not for their speed in legislating, but for the care with which they have drafted great legal frameworks to protect both pets and livestock. And of course, part of sustainable animal husbandry involves taking care of your animals.
Switzerland was not one of the pioneering countries, but it has certainly been one of the most conscientious, to the point that when they asked themselves whether sustainable livestock farming was possible, they included protection in their constitution. The current Swiss government has an incredibly strict policy regarding animal welfare and land care using... cows? This is how Switzerland uses neolithic innovation to export high-quality cheeses.
Switzerland is a country of cows
That the cow is a symbol of Switzerland is beyond doubt when a few facts are examined. Grazing on one million hectares are half a million cows - Switzerland is home to 8.85 million people - of which nine out of ten graze on meadows and pastures, consuming more than eight million tons of fodder annually. The output of this industry is 3.5 million tons of milk per year, of which 1.5 million tons are used for cheese and 1 million tons for butter.
Pastoralism in Switzerland dates back more than 10,000 years, but it is in the last few decades that the Swiss government, through direct democracy, has established a strict policy on animal welfare - no one may “unduly subject an animal to pain, suffering, harm or fear,” according to the Federal Animal Protection Act - and care of the pastures (which generally grow strong with an enviable amount of rain). The result? Switzerland protects the dignity of animals at the constitutional level and produces great cheeses without harming the environment.
Sustainable livestock as a response to the climate crisis
What is a grazing cow for? The direct benefits of grazing animals include:
- Balance between reforestation and deforestation. Without grazing, many alpine areas would become forests, while others would be deserted. Thanks to the grass, it is the shepherds themselves who delimit, clean and protect the wooded areas while preserving the grassland for future generations through a careful cattle feeding cycle. It is like a form of mountain gardening.
- Biodiversity maintenance. Cattle grazing creates a mosaic of vegetation of different heights and densities. This variety of altitudes provides habitats for a wide range of species, from insects and reptiles to birds and small mammals. It also keeps corridors of land open that would otherwise be closed by the growth of shrubs and trees.
- Vegetation in better health. When grazing is sustainable, that is, when a herd does not exhaust the vegetation of an area but rotates from plot to plot, it results in root growth of food plants, which sequesters carbon better and releases nutrients into the soil, improving soil quality by supporting microorganisms. The soil becomes more fertile.
- It avoids superficial runoff. Fertile, lively soil, full of deeper roots, better infiltrates water and prevents surface runoff from eroding the land, so the cows are helping to prevent flooding that sometimes threatens human infrastructure. In a sense, they are cows that prevent droughts.
Innovating by learning from the past
The Swiss haven't invented anything, nor have they invented the short water cycle, how grazing improves soil quality or how sustainable farming avoids flooding. But they have been able to use nature to the benefit of both themselves and their citizens.
The manufacture of Swiss cheese and the sale of milk is not a particularly lucrative, high profit business. As they are outside the European CAP (Common Agricultural Policy), they need their own economic adjustment mechanisms and support for the sector. And they do so while providing local jobs, consolidating rural populations and maintaining the family economy. In fact, most of the farms are small, with just over 25 head of cattle and a production of less than 200,000 liters per year. But Switzerland takes this form of life very seriously.
In part because grazing performs critical functions of clearing fields and protecting vegetative cover. Without this tool, the cost to the Swiss government of maintaining the camps would be exorbitant. In fact, many Spanish projects are already using regenerative grazing in which the grazing area is rotated. But while in countries such as Spain improving soil quality is optional, in Switzerland grazing is mandatory in the mountains.
This is the key to Swiss innovation in this field: a regulation specifically designed to protect nature, animal welfare, and preserve the quality of life of humans.