SWITZERLAND

Executive Summary

This report aims to provide a general overview of the situation of renewable raw materials in Switzerland. The focus lays on technical usage. Energetic aspects are not part of the report. The report is divided into four chapters with identical structure: oil, fibres, carbohydrates and crops with special uses.

The Swiss government supported renewable raw materials in agriculture financially over the past decade. Acreages of renewable raw materials, however, remain very small. The report presents research results of recent years, some market assessments, legal and economic issues and an estimation of the most important barriers to progress for renewable raw materials for technical uses in Switzerland.

Because renewable raw materials have been substituted in the past decades by products based on mineral oil, processing industry is optimised for mineral oil. For this reason, efforts are required to re-substitute mineral oil by renewable raw materials, such as fibres or vegetable oils. Until now, the Swiss processing industry rarely processes plant fibres or vegetable oils. Local crop cultivation is negligible and imported quantities are small. Facilities for the extraction of fibres or starch do not exist in Switzerland. This missing link between agriculture and processing industry can be a main reason for the small importance of renewable raw materials such as fibres or carbohydrates in Switzerland. Furthermore, Swiss agronomic production costs are especially high and raw material such as vegetable oils can be imported more cheaply from abroad. Only the sector of medicinal plants seems to be successful and acreages of locally grown medicinal plants are expected to increase in the next years, especially for organic farming. One reason for this up-coming agronomic sector could be the well-organised value chain, starting with structured associations of farmers up to public research and processing companies. This efficient value chain doesn't exist for fibre, oil or carbohydrate crops in Switzerland.

Until now, there is no umbrella organisation or official contact office in Switzerland that organises and optimises the value chain for renewable raw materials from farmers up to the resulting product. Such a function could be very helpful to overcome barriers to progress for renewable raw materials, especially against the background of decreasing mineral oil reserves. Renewable raw materials will be the only possible substitute for mineral oil in some years. Furthermore, the Kyoto-protocol signed in 1997 obligates Switzerland to reduce emissions such as CO2. The substitution of mineral oil-based products with plant-based materials would be a sustainable possibility. The presented report intends to give the status quo of activities and opportunities for renewable raw materials in Switzerland in the year 2003 and provides information to support future decision for policy.

General Situation
The Swiss Government decided to support actively the growing of crops for the production of renewable raw materials in agriculture in the year 1993. The aims of this support program can be divided in three categories:

Areas that were provided for the cultivation of renewable raw materials had to be arable farmland. The cultivation of renewable raw materials on grassland was not allowed. The cultivation area for renewable raw materials was limited to 2000 ha. The financial support by government was 3000 Fr./ha (2000€/ha) per year, except grass and field wood which could get only 1500 Fr/ha (1000€/ha) per year. The payment of this contribution required a contract with a purchaser.

In 1998, the newly released law about contributions for agriculture (Ackerbaubeitragsverordnung) replaced these conditions. Contributions were paid for all fibre plants and some oil plants such as oilseed rape, sunflower or hemp. Contracts with purchasers were not required. Furthermore, financial support for pilot plants for processing of renewable raw materials were approved. Research on the agronomic aspects for the cultivation of crops that could be used as renewable raw materials was initiated. After some newly started activities on renewable raw materials, activities nearly stopped both on the agronomic and the market side. Only a few companies are still processing renewable raw materials; public research is negligible. There are no legislative targets or loan programs to support the application of products based on renewable raw materials like in Germany.

In Switzerland, there is no state-run office engaged in renewable raw materials. For this reason, activities on renewable raw materials are carried out quite independently in the agronomic and industrial sector. This report should provide relevant information of all these activities of about the last ten years.