The backers of Switzerland’s Safe Food initiative have lodged an appeal against the Federal Council and the Federal Chancellery, accusing them of misrepresenting the proposal in the official booklet for the vote on September 27th, RTS reported.
The appeal was filed on Thursday with the government of the canton of Bern by Franziska Herren, an environmental campaigner and one of the initiative’s leading supporters.
The campaigners say the authorities have wrongly presented the initiative’s central target as legally binding. The proposed constitutional amendment says that, within ten years, the federal government should seek to raise Switzerland’s net food self-sufficiency rate to at least 70%. Its authors argue that this is an aspiration rather than an enforceable obligation.
The initiative has faced broad political opposition from the outset. No party supported it during the parliamentary debate. Some opponents have dismissed it as vegan dogma, warning that its approval would lead to sweeping state interference in what people eat.
The government has also challenged the initiative’s environmental case. It argues that reducing livestock production in Switzerland could merely shift the associated environmental damage abroad rather than eliminate it.
The Federal Chancellery told Keystone-SDA that it stood by its interpretation. The initiative’s transitional provisions state that the new constitutional requirements must be met within ten years of adoption. The Federal Council therefore considers the 70% target binding.
Supporters of the initiative want the Federal Council to correct what they describe as misleading and inaccurate”statements. If that is no longer possible, they are asking for the vote to be postponed. Should it go ahead, they will seek to have the result annulled.
The dispute exposes a tension at the heart of Switzerland’s food-security policy. If greater self-sufficiency is genuinely the goal, shifting production towards plant-based food would be an obvious way to achieve it. But if consumers continue to favour animal products that Switzerland cannot produce in sufficient quantities, the policy risks becoming little more than political cover for the interests of particular farming sectors.
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