Changins

Agroscope is the Swiss Confederation’s centre of excellence for agricultural research, and is affiliated with the Federal Office for Agriculture, which in turn is subordinate to the The Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER). Agroscope makes an important contribution to a sustainable agriculture and food sector as well as to an intact environment, thereby contributing to an improved quality of life.

Agroscope consists of four institutes:

Agroscope researches along the entire value chain of the agriculture and food sector. Its aims are a competitive and multifunctional agricultural sector, high-quality food for a healthy diet, and an intact environment. The Research Station gears its work to the needs of the recipients of its services.

History until 1850

The importance in many regions of the Swiss Plateau was dominated for centuries by the three-field technique. This three-span rotation was divided as follows:

In each field possessed the farmer his individual acre. It was not a working association of farmers, but of a village community. The three-field did not let an intensive livestock. The common grazing on the fallow, the unfertilized Allmend and the stubble fields, and the lack of winter feeding offered only a meager food. For centuries, forest trees were debranched for winter feed. Agriculture froze in the three-field.

For agriculture, the 18th Century, means the dawn of a new, better era. Young country gentlemen took the management of their estates into their own hands and sought to agriculture, especially livestock raising and promote. The chains of the three-field technique were broken. They began with the stall-feeding, careful storage of manure, and built on the former fields potatoes and clover. The common land was parceled out and divided among the peasants. A new goal came to the fore, namely, to keep enough cattle to supply their own country with enough manure. In the midst of these developments, the French Revolution broke out. The world was open for innovations.

First stations for education an controlling (1850–1880)

During the second half of the 19th century, humans had to adapt to the requirements of an industrialized community. Completely new technologies changed their lives and natural sciences offered completely different explanations for life procedures and agricultural production than before.

In the 19th century Switzerland therefore starts to install local agricultural institutes. With the new Federal Constitution of 1848 the modern welfare state begins to develop. In the Fifties the first, however very modest agricultural subsidies were paid to farmers.

Till the middle of the 19th century people had to cultivate their bread grain by themselves. For the authorities, the major task of agriculture was the self-sufficiency of states with grain. Only until 1860, larger quantities of grain were imported from the Danube countries and from overseas.

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Wikipedia