Effects of water protection measures in agriculture on the environmental impacts of the Swiss food sector

Abstract

European agro-environmental policy aims to reduce agricultural emissions of nutrients and pesticides into water, yet these goals remain unmet. Voluntary direct payments schemes aim to steer farmers towards emission-reducing practices. We assessed the environmental impacts of stricter direct payment regulations: Farmers who want to receive direct payments a) have to produce pesticide-free and b) have to reduce their livestock numbers to their own farm's feed production capacity. We compared the environmental impacts of the Swiss agricultural sector in three direct payment scenarios with the status quo. We addressed the trade-offs between domestic production and imports, and between target and other environmental impacts.While freshwater ecotoxicity within Switzerland would decrease considerably due to reduced pesticide use, aquatic eutrophication caused by domestic agriculture would remain similar to the status quo. However, increased import amounts would more than offset the domestic environmental improvements. Eutrophication, particularly caused by imported meat, would increase strongly, as would deforestation and water scarcity. Our paper shows that the improvement of water quality in Switzerland has to be bought with partly considerable trade-offs in the countries of origin of imported products, showing the need for complementary measures such as reducing food waste or changing consumption patterns.