Development of the Grosses Moos region

Our goal:

Testing of sustainable solutions for agriculture, biodiversity, and climate protection in the Bernese Grosses Moos.

View of the Grosses Moos region from Mont Vully, in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland. Photo: Natalia Peralta 

In a nutshell:

The Grosses Moos region, a drained former wetland, is crucial to agricultural production in Switzerland, in particular vegetable cultivation. However, it currently faces major challenges in the areas of agriculture, soil, biodiversity, water management, and climate.

This project aims to find solutions through a participatory process together with local actors from agriculture and nature conservation. To this end, pilot projects are being initiated and implemented. The goal is for participating actors to propose and develop solutions in the most “bottom-up” manner possible. Five pilot projects—so-called incubators—are currently being conducted. In each incubator, representatives from agriculture and nature conservation are brought together to collaborate.

Crop varieties and cultivation systems for production and biodiversity: Project participants are working to restore a degraded area of land owned by the municipality of Treiten. While one part of the land area continues to be farmed conventionally, a biodiversity-friendly cropping system is being tested on another part that is well-suited for this purpose. The latter approach holds promise of providing dual benefits for agriculture and biodiversity.

Management concept for the maintenance and care of biotopes in the Grosses Moos region:

This project is focused on development of a digital app to record, monitor, and coordinate the maintenance of existing biodiversity priority areas (an instrument under the Swiss Agriculture Act to promote biodiversity). The app should help to ensure efficient use of available financial and human resources by simplifying planning of maintenance measures for biodiversity priority areas.

High-quality biodiversity priority areas in the right locations: New, region-specific types of biodiversity priority areas are being tested for the Grosses Moos region in order to improve the overall quality of biodiversity priority areas as a conservation instrument. The tested types are tailored to local conditions (nutrient-rich soils) and target species that are particularly worthy of protection in the Grosses Moos region.

Harnessing the potential of biodiversity priority areas through extension services: Farmers are provided extension services to identify untapped ecological potential and implement optimized solutions in existing biodiversity priority areas. Efforts toward pooling ecological knowledge aim at improving the quality of current biodiversity priority areas.

Targeted water management through passive irrigation: On a pilot farm with organic soils, project participants are testing whether targeted blocking of drainage can keep organic soil layers moist and supply crops with sufficient water through capillary action, thus reducing the need for irrigation. The aim is to slow the ongoing decomposition of peat while reducing the need for irrigation with water from canals.

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In collaboration with:

Office for Agriculture and Nature of the Canton of Bern (LANAT)

 Implementing partner: Ecoplan AG (overall project management)

Status: Ongoing project