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Federal Act
on Agriculture
(Agriculture Act, AgricA)

of 29 April 1998 (Status as of 1 July 2023)

The Federal Assembly of the Swiss Confederation,

based on Articles 45, 46 paragraph 1, 102–104, 120, 123 and 147 of the Federal Constitution1,2

and having considered the Federal Council Dispatch dated 26 June 19963,

decrees:

1 SR 101

2 Amended by Annex No II 6 of the Foodstuffs Act of 20 June 2014, in force since 1 May 2017 (AS 2017 249; BBl 2011 5571).

3 BBl 1996 IV 1

Title 1 General Principles

Art. 1 Aim  

The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall en­sure that, through sus­tain­able, mar­ket-ori­ent­ated pro­duc­tion, the ag­ri­cul­tur­al sec­tor makes a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to­wards:

a.
the re­li­able pro­vi­sion of the pop­u­la­tion with food­stuffs;
b.
pre­serving nat­ur­al re­sources;
c.
the up­keep of the coun­tryside;
d.
en­cour­aging de­cent­ral­ised set­tle­ment;
e.4
guar­an­tee­ing an­im­al wel­fare.

4 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 2 Federal measures  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall take meas­ures, in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
to cre­ate fa­vour­able con­di­tions for the pro­duc­tion and sale of ag­ri­cul­tur­al products;
b.5
to pay for pub­lic and eco­lo­gic­al ser­vices provided by farms through dir­ect sub­sidies;
bbis.6 to pro­mote the sus­tain­able use of nat­ur­al re­sources and an­im­al and cli­mate friendly pro­duc­tion;
c.
to sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of ag­ri­cul­ture in a so­cially ac­cept­able man­ner;
d.
to sup­port struc­tur­al im­prove­ments;
e.7
to pro­mote ag­ri­cul­tur­al re­search and ad­vis­ory ser­vices as well as plant and an­im­al breed­ing;
f.
to reg­u­late plant pro­tec­tion and the use of aids to pro­duc­tion8.

2 These fed­er­al meas­ures are con­di­tion­al on a reas­on­able de­gree of self-help and are co­ordin­ated with re­gion­al policy in­stru­ments.

3 They sup­port a joint strategy for qual­ity in ag­ri­cul­ture and the food in­dustry.9

4 They are based on the prin­ciple of self-suf­fi­ciency with re­gard to food, tak­ing in­to ac­count con­sumers’ needs for high-qual­ity, var­ied and sus­tain­able do­mest­ic products.10

5 Sup­port meas­ures that are likely to dis­tort com­pet­i­tion to the det­ri­ment of trade and in­dustry are ex­cluded. Pro­ced­ures are gov­erned by Art­icle 89a. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the de­tails.11

5 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

6 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337). Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

7 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

8 Term amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234). This amend­ment has been made throughout the Act.

9 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

10 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

11 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 3 Definition and scope of application  

1 The term ag­ri­cul­ture in­cludes:

a.
products from ar­able and live­stock farm­ing;
b.
the pre­par­a­tion, stor­age and sale of the cor­res­pond­ing products on the farm;
c.
the man­age­ment of areas of near-nat­ur­al land.

1bis The meas­ures in Parts 5 and 6 ap­ply to ag­ri­cul­tur­al activ­it­ies. They are con­di­tion­al on an activ­ity in line with the prin­ciple of para­graph 1, let­ters a–c.12

2 The meas­ures in Part 2 Chapter 1 and those in­dic­ated in Parts 5 to 7 ap­ply to hor­ti­cul­tur­al busi­nesses.13

3 The meas­ures in Part 2 Chapter 1, Part 5 and Part 7 Chapter 2 ap­ply to pro­fes­sion­al fish­ing and fish farm­ing.

4 The meas­ures lis­ted in Part 2 Chapter 1, Part 6 and Part 7 Chapter 2 ap­ply to bee­keep­ing.14

12 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

13 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

14 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 4 Difficult production and living conditions  

1 Dif­fi­cult pro­duc­tion and liv­ing con­di­tions, in par­tic­u­lar in moun­tain and up­land areas, must be ad­equately taken in­to ac­count in the ap­plic­a­tion of this Act.

2 The Fed­er­al Of­fice for Ag­ri­cul­ture (FO­AG) shall di­vide all farmed land in­to zones ac­cord­ing to the de­gree of dif­fi­culty and keep a pro­duc­tion re­gister.15

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall set the cri­ter­ia for de­term­in­ing such zones.

15 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 6a Nutrient losses 16  

1 The ni­tro­gen and phos­phor­us losses from ag­ri­cul­ture shall be re­duced ap­pro­pri­ately by 2030 re­l­at­ive to the mean value for the years 2014–2016.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify the re­duc­tion tar­gets and the meth­od for as­sess­ing achieve­ment of these tar­gets. In do­ing so, it shall also be guided by the aim of elim­in­at­ing im­por­ted ar­ti­fi­cial fer­til­isers by pro­mot­ing the use of nu­tri­ents based on in­di­gen­ous farm­yard ma­nure and in­di­gen­ous bio­mass, tak­ing due ac­count of eco­lo­gic­al and eco­nom­ic con­straints. Be­fore set­ting its re­quire­ments, it shall con­sult the can­tons, the sec­tor­al and pro­du­cer or­gan­isa­tions con­cerned and oth­er stake­hold­er or­gan­isa­tions. It shall de­term­ine the re­port­ing re­quire­ments.

3 The sec­tor­al and pro­du­cer or­gan­isa­tions con­cerned and oth­er stake­hold­er or­gan­isa­tions may take the ne­ces­sary re­duc­tion meas­ures and re­port reg­u­larly to the Con­fed­er­a­tion on the nature and ef­fect of the meas­ures they have taken.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may des­ig­nate the or­gan­isa­tions re­ferred to in para­graphs 2 and 3.

5 It may ap­point a private sec­tor agency to per­form cer­tain tasks, such as as­sess­ing meas­ures for re­du­cing ni­tro­gen and phos­phor­us losses, mon­it­or­ing the res­ults or provid­ing ad­vis­ory ser­vices, and may of­fer fin­an­cial sup­port for such activ­it­ies.

16 In­ser­ted by No I 3 of the FA of 19 March 2021 on Re­du­cing the Risks as­so­ci­ated with Pesti­cide Use, in force since 1 Jan. 2023 (AS 2022 263; BBl 20206523, 6785).

Art. 6b Reduction of the risks from the use of plant protection products 17  

1 The risks to hu­mans, an­im­als and the en­vir­on­ment from the use of plant pro­tec­tion products shall be re­duced and the qual­ity of drink­ing wa­ter, sur­face wa­ters and ground­wa­ter shall be im­proved.

2 The risks to sur­face wa­ters and to semi-nat­ur­al hab­it­ats and the ex­tent of ground­wa­ter con­tam­in­a­tion must be re­duced by 50 per cent by 2027 re­l­at­ive to the mean value for the years 2012−2015. If the risks re­main un­ac­cept­able, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may set a re­duc­tion path for the peri­od from 2027.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify the in­dic­at­ors for as­sess­ing achieve­ment of the val­ues re­ferred to in para­graph 2. These in­dic­at­ors shall take ac­count of the tox­icity and the use of the vari­ous plant pro­tec­tion products. For this pur­pose, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall con­sider data from, among oth­er sources, the in­form­a­tion sys­tem re­ferred to in Art­icle 165f bis.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may define risk re­duc­tion val­ues for oth­er risk areas.

5 The sec­tor­al and pro­du­cer or­gan­isa­tions con­cerned and oth­er stake­hold­er or­gan­isa­tions may take risk re­duc­tion meas­ures and re­port reg­u­larly to the Con­fed­er­a­tion on the nature and ef­fect of the meas­ures they have taken.

6 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may des­ig­nate the or­gan­isa­tions re­ferred to in para­graph 5.

7 It may ap­point a private sec­tor agency to per­form cer­tain tasks, such as as­sess­ing risk re­duc­tion meas­ures, mon­it­or­ing the res­ults or provid­ing ad­vis­ory ser­vices, and may of­fer fin­an­cial sup­port for such activ­it­ies.

8 Should it be­come ap­par­ent that that the re­duc­tion tar­gets re­ferred to in para­graph 2 will not be achieved, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall take the ne­ces­sary meas­ures two years at the latest be­fore the dead­line, spe­cific­ally by re­vok­ing the ap­prov­al of sub­stances pos­ing a par­tic­u­larly high risk.

17 In­ser­ted by No I 3 of the FA of 19 March 2021 on Re­du­cing the Risks as­so­ci­ated with Pesti­cide Use, in force since 1 Jan. 2023 (AS 2022 263; BBl 20206523, 6785).

Art. 5 Incomes  

1 The meas­ures in this Act aim to en­sure that farms run on a sus­tain­able basis and which are eco­nom­ic­ally ef­fi­cient can achieve in­comes over a peri­od of sev­er­al years that are com­par­able to in­comes in oth­er sec­tors in the same re­gion.

2 If in­comes fall clearly be­low a com­par­able level, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall in­tro­duce tem­por­ary meas­ures to im­prove the situ­ation.

3 Oth­er branches of trade and in­dustry, the eco­nom­ic situ­ation of work­ers out­side the ag­ri­cul­tur­al sec­tor and the state of the fed­er­al cof­fers must also be taken in­to ac­count.

Art. 6 Framework for payments  

Fund­ing for the most im­port­ant areas of activ­ity shall be ap­proved for a max­im­um peri­od of four years on the basis of a Fed­er­al Coun­cil dis­patch with a simple fed­er­al de­cree.

Title 2 General Conditions for Production and Sales

Art. 7 Principle  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall draw up gen­er­al con­di­tions for the pro­duc­tion and sale of ag­ri­cul­tur­al products so as to en­sure that the ag­ri­cul­tur­al sec­tor can op­er­ate sus­tain­ably and cost-ef­fi­ciently while at the same time achiev­ing max­im­um mar­ket prices from the sale of its products.

2 At the same time it shall take in­to ac­count the ne­ces­sity for product safety, con­sumer pro­tec­tion and re­li­able food sup­plies for the coun­try.18

18 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Chapter 1 General Economic Provisions

Section 1 Quality, Sales Promotion and Market Relief

Art. 8 Self-help  

1 Pro­du­cers’ or­gan­isa­tions or the cor­res­pond­ing branches are re­spons­ible for pro­mot­ing qual­ity and sales, as well as for en­sur­ing that pro­duc­tion and sup­ply are ad­ap­ted to the de­mands of the mar­ket.

1bis The branch or­gan­isa­tions may draw up stand­ard con­tracts.19

2 A branch or­gan­isa­tion is an as­so­ci­ation of pro­du­cers of in­di­vidu­al products or product groups with pro­cessors and, in some cases, with traders.

19 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 8a Guideline prices 20  

1 The or­gan­isa­tions of pro­du­cers of in­di­vidu­al products or product groups or the cor­res­pond­ing branches may pub­lish guideline prices at a na­tion­al or re­gion­al level to which sup­pli­ers and buy­ers have agreed.

2 Guideline prices must be set ac­cord­ing to dif­fer­ent levels of qual­ity.

3 No in­di­vidu­al busi­ness may be forced to com­ply with guideline prices.

4 No guideline prices may be set for re­tail sales.

20 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 9 Support for self-help measures 21  

1 In­so­far as self-help meas­ures men­tioned in Art­icle 8 para­graph 1 come un­der threat from busi­nesses that do not com­ply with the col­lect­ively agreed meas­ures, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may in­tro­duce reg­u­la­tions if the or­gan­isa­tion:22

a.
is rep­res­ent­at­ive;
b.
is not act­ive in pro­duc­tion, pro­cessing or sales;
c.
has ap­proved the self-help meas­ures by a clear ma­jor­ity.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ob­lige non-mem­bers of an or­gan­isa­tion to con­trib­ute to­wards fund­ing self-help meas­ures men­tioned in Art­icle 8 para­graph 1 if the con­di­tions out­lined in para­graph 1 are met and the or­gan­isa­tion re­ceives con­tri­bu­tions from its mem­bers for fund­ing self-help meas­ures. Such con­tri­bu­tions may not be used to cov­er the or­gan­isa­tion’s ad­min­is­trat­ive ex­penses.23

3 With re­gard to ad­apt­ing pro­duc­tion and sup­ply to mar­ket de­mand, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may is­sue reg­u­la­tions solely in case of ex­cep­tion­al de­vel­op­ments that are not caused by struc­tur­al prob­lems.24

4 Products sold dir­ectly to the pub­lic may not be made sub­ject to the reg­u­la­tions men­tioned in para­graph 1, and farm­ers who sell dir­ect to the pub­lic may not be made li­able for con­tri­bu­tions un­der para­graph 2 based on the volume of products thus sold.

21 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

22 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

23 Second sen­tence in­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

24 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 10 Quality regulations 25  

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may is­sue reg­u­la­tions on qual­ity as well as on the meth­ods used to ob­tain ag­ri­cul­tur­al products and their pro­cessing if such reg­u­la­tions are re­quired for their ex­port or for com­pli­ance with Switzer­land’s in­ter­na­tion­al ob­lig­a­tions or with in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ards that are im­port­ant for Swiss ag­ri­cul­ture.

25 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 11 Improving quality and sustainability 26  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall sup­port joint meas­ures ad­op­ted by pro­du­cers, pro­cessors or traders that are aimed at im­prov­ing or en­sur­ing the qual­ity and sus­tain­ab­il­ity of ag­ri­cul­tur­al products and goods pro­cessed from them, as well as of pro­cessing meth­ods.

2 Such meas­ures must:

a.
pro­mote in­nov­a­tion or co­oper­a­tion throughout the product chain;
b.
fore­see the par­ti­cip­a­tion of pro­du­cers and be first and fore­most of be­ne­fit to them.

3 Sup­port may be provided in par­tic­u­lar for:

a.
pre­lim­in­ary stud­ies;
b.
the ini­tial im­ple­ment­a­tion of the meas­ures;
c.
the in­clu­sion of pro­du­cers in pro­jects aimed at im­prov­ing qual­ity and sus­tain­ab­il­ity.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall draw up re­quire­ments for such sup­port.

26 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 12 Sales promotion  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may sub­sid­ise na­tion­al or re­gion­al meas­ures in­tro­duced by pro­du­cers, pro­cessors or traders that are aimed at pro­mot­ing the sale of Swiss ag­ri­cul­tur­al products with­in the coun­try and abroad.27

2 For this pur­pose it may also sup­port ef­forts to in­crease aware­ness of pub­lic ser­vices provided by the ag­ri­cul­tur­al sec­tor.28

3 It may also co­ordin­ate sub­sid­ised meas­ures with­in Switzer­land and abroad, for ex­ample by de­vis­ing a com­mon iden­tity.29

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall draw up the cri­ter­ia for the al­loc­a­tion of sub­sidies.

27 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

28 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

29 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 13 Market relief  

1 In or­der to avoid slumps in the price of ag­ri­cul­tur­al products, the Con­fed­er­a­tion may con­trib­ute to the cost of tem­por­ary meas­ures, in ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances, in or­der to re­lieve the mar­ket. It may not sub­sid­ise the re­duc­tion of sur­pluses due to struc­tur­al factors.

2 Fed­er­al sub­sidies are nor­mally con­di­tion­al on ap­pro­pri­ate con­tri­bu­tions from the can­tons or from in­ter­ested or­gan­isa­tions.

Section 2 Labelling

Art. 14 General provisions  

1 In the in­terests of cred­ib­il­ity and to pro­mote qual­ity and sales, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may is­sue reg­u­la­tions con­cern­ing the la­belling of ag­ri­cul­tur­al products and pro­cessed products which:

a.
are man­u­fac­tured us­ing cer­tain meth­ods;
b.
have oth­er spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­ist­ics;
c.
come from moun­tain areas;
d.
can be dis­tin­guished by their ori­gin;
e.30
are man­u­fac­tured without the use of cer­tain pro­ced­ures or do not dis­play spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­ist­ics;
f.31
are man­u­fac­tured ac­cord­ing to spe­cial cri­ter­ia for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

2 La­belling such products ac­cord­ing to these reg­u­la­tions is vol­un­tary.

3 The pro­vi­sions of le­gis­la­tion on gene tech­no­logy and food­stuffs are re­served.32

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may de­vise of­fi­cial sym­bols for la­belling un­der the terms of this Art­icle and Art­icle 63 para­graph 1 let­ters a and b and may make their use man­dat­ory.33

5 It is man­dat­ory to use these sym­bols in sales pro­mo­tion cam­paigns in­volving meas­ures men­tioned in Art­icle 12.34

30 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 8 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

31 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

32 Amended by No 8 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

33 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337). Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

34 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 15 Production methods and specific product characteristics  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall stip­u­late:

a.
the re­quire­ments that must be met by the products and pro­duc­tion meth­ods, in par­tic­u­lar those that claim to be eco­lo­gic­al;
b.
mon­it­or­ing pro­ced­ures.

2 Products may only be la­belled as or­gan­ic if the en­tire farm where they are pro­duced is run or­gan­ic­ally. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may in par­tic­u­lar al­low ex­cep­tions for farms with per­man­ent crops in­so­far as the in­teg­rity of the or­gan­ic pro­duc­tion and its abil­ity to be checked is not com­prom­ised.35

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may re­cog­nise the guidelines is­sued by or­gan­isa­tions if they in­clude the re­quire­ments men­tioned un­der para­graph 1 let­ter a.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may re­cog­nise la­belling for for­eign products if it is based on equi­val­ent re­quire­ments.

35 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 16 Designations of origin and geographical indications 36  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall set up a re­gister of des­ig­na­tions of ori­gin and geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tions.

2 In par­tic­u­lar it shall reg­u­late:

a.
en­ti­tle­ment to re­gis­tra­tion;
b.
the re­quire­ments for re­gis­tra­tion, in par­tic­u­lar re­quire­ments re­gard­ing product spe­cific­a­tions;
c.
ap­peal and re­gis­tra­tion pro­ced­ures;
d.
mon­it­or­ing.

2bis Swiss and for­eign des­ig­na­tions of ori­gin and geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tions may be entered in the re­gister.37

3 Re­gistered des­ig­na­tions of ori­gin or geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tions may not be used as gen­er­ic names. Gen­er­ic names may not be re­gistered as des­ig­na­tions of ori­gin or as geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tions.

4 If the name of a can­ton or a loc­al­ity is used in a des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin or a geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tion, it must be veri­fied that re­gis­ter­ing the product com­plies with any rel­ev­ant can­ton­al reg­u­la­tions.

5 Re­gistered des­ig­na­tions of ori­gin or geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tions may not be re­gistered as product trade marks if the terms of para­graph 7 ap­ply.38

5bis If a trade mark is filed that con­tains a des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin or geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tion that is identic­al or sim­il­ar to a des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin or geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tion that has been filed for re­gis­tra­tion for identic­al or com­par­able goods, the trade mark ex­am­in­a­tion pro­ced­ure shall be sus­pen­ded un­til a leg­ally bind­ing de­cision has been taken on the ap­plic­a­tion to re­gister the des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin or the geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tion.39

6 Any per­son who uses a re­gistered des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin or geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tion for identic­al or sim­il­ar ag­ri­cul­tur­al products or goods pro­cessed from them must com­ply with the reg­u­la­tions in­dic­ated in para­graph 2 let­ter b. This does not ap­ply to the use of trade marks that are identic­al or sim­il­ar to a re­gistered des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin or geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tion and which have been de­pos­ited or re­gistered in good faith or to which the right of use has been ac­quired in good faith:

a.
be­fore 1 Janu­ary 1996; or
b.
be­fore the name of the re­gistered des­ig­na­tion of ori­gin or geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tion came un­der pro­tec­tion un­der the terms of this Act or on an­oth­er leg­al basis, in­so­far as none of the grounds for nullity or ex­piry in­dic­ated in the Trade­mark Pro­tec­tion Act of 28 Au­gust 199240 can be demon­strated for the trade mark.41

6bis In as­sess­ing the leg­al­ity of the use of a trade mark ac­quired in good faith un­der the terms of para­graph 6, par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion should be giv­en to the ques­tion of wheth­er there is any risk of de­cep­tion or a breach of genu­ine com­pet­i­tion.42

7 Re­gistered des­ig­na­tions of ori­gin and geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tions are pro­tec­ted in par­tic­u­lar against:

a.
any com­mer­cial use in re­la­tion to oth­er products which takes ad­vant­age of the repu­ta­tion of a pro­tec­ted des­ig­na­tion;
b.
any form of usurp­a­tion, im­it­a­tion or coun­ter­feit­ing.

36 Term in ac­cord­ance with An­nex No 7 of the FA of 21 June 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2017 (AS 2015 3631; BBl 2009 8533). This amend­ment has been made throughout the text.

37 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 7 of the FA of 21 June 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2017 (AS 2015 3631; BBl 2009 8533).

38 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

39 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 7 of the FA of 21 June 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2017 (AS 2015 3631; BBl 2009 8533).

40 SR 232.11

41 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

42 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 16a Indications of particular characteristics or production methods 43  

1 Ag­ri­cul­tur­al products or products pro­cessed from them may be la­belled with in­form­a­tion about their par­tic­u­lar char­ac­ter­ist­ics or the pro­duc­tion meth­ods used that come un­der the reg­u­la­tions (en­vir­on­ment­ally friendly pro­duc­tion, proof of or­gan­ic pro­duc­tion or an­im­al-friendly live­stock man­age­ment) or with in­form­a­tion con­cern­ing the reg­u­la­tions.

2 In par­tic­u­lar, any such in­form­a­tion must com­ply with the reg­u­la­tions on pro­tec­tion against de­cep­tion un­der the terms of le­gis­la­tion on food­stuffs.

43 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 24 March 2006, in force since 1 Oct. 2006 (AS 2006 3861; BBl 200470697083).

Art. 16b Protection of designations of origin and geographical indications outside Switzerland 44  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall sup­port the branch, pro­du­cers’ and pro­cessors’ or­gan­isa­tions in pro­tect­ing la­bels of Swiss ori­gin and geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tions out­side Switzer­land.

2 It may take on part of the ex­penses ac­cru­ing to Swiss mis­sions abroad if the lat­ter are asked by branch, pro­du­cers’ or pro­cessors’ or­gan­isa­tions to pro­tect des­ig­na­tions of ori­gin or a geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tions.

44 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Section 3 Imports

Art. 17 Import duties  

When im­port du­ties are set, do­mest­ic sup­ply and po­ten­tial sales of sim­il­ar do­mest­ic products must be taken in­to ac­count.

Art. 18 Measures regarding products obtained using production methods banned in Switzerland  

1 Un­less such ac­tion breaches in­ter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall in­tro­duce reg­u­la­tions con­cern­ing the de­clar­a­tion of products that have been ob­tained us­ing meth­ods that are banned in Switzer­land; it shall raise im­port du­ties or ban the im­port of such products.45

2 Un­der the terms of para­graph 1, banned pro­duc­tion meth­ods in­clude those meth­ods which en­danger:

a.
the life or health of hu­man be­ings, an­im­als or plants; or
b.
the en­vir­on­ment.

45 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 19 Customs tariffs  

1 Un­less this Act provides oth­er­wise, re­spons­ib­il­ity and pro­ced­ures for set­ting cus­toms tar­iffs are gov­erned by cus­toms le­gis­la­tion.

2 The cus­toms tar­iffs for sug­ar to­geth­er with the guar­an­tee fund con­tri­bu­tions (Art. 16 Na­tion­al Eco­nom­ic Sup­ply Act of 17 June 201646)amount to a min­im­um of 7 francs per 100 kg gross. This pro­vi­sions ap­plies un­til 2026.47

46 SR 531

47 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 1 Oct 2021, in force since 1 March 2022 (AS 2022 85; BBl 2021 457, 748).

Art. 19a Specific use of income from customs duties 48  

1 The in­come from cus­toms du­ties on ag­ri­cul­tur­al products and food­stuffs for the peri­od 2009–2016 is ear­marked for a spe­cif­ic pur­pose, namely to fund ac­com­pa­ny­ing meas­ures in re­la­tion to the im­ple­ment­a­tion of a free-trade agree­ment with the European Uni­on re­gard­ing ag­ri­cul­tur­al products and food­stuffs or of a WTO agree­ment.

2 In par­tic­u­lar, the fund­ing must be used for ac­com­pa­ny­ing meas­ures to sup­port ag­ri­cul­ture.

3 If ne­go­ti­ations are un­suc­cess­ful, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall re­lease the funds for oth­er uses.

4 If the pro­posed ac­com­pa­ny­ing meas­ures re­quire less fund­ing than that ear­marked for this spe­cif­ic pur­pose, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may re­lease the re­main­ing amount for oth­er uses.

48 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 18 June 2010, in force since 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 5851; BBl 2009 1335).

Art. 20 Threshold prices  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may in­tro­duce threshold prices for in­di­vidu­al products. The terms of Art­icle 17 ap­ply.

2 The threshold price cor­res­ponds to the tar­get im­port price, com­pris­ing the price franco Swiss bor­der and cus­toms du­ties as well as charges with a sim­il­ar ef­fect.49 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide how the price franco Swiss bor­der, un­taxed, is cal­cu­lated.50

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may set the threshold price for a group of products. The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs, Edu­ca­tion and Re­search (EAER)51 shall set a guideline im­port value for in­di­vidu­al products.

4 The EAER shall de­cide to what ex­tent the sum of the cus­toms duty rate and price franco Swiss bor­der, un­taxed, may de­vi­ate from the threshold price be­fore the cus­toms duty rate has to be ad­jus­ted (band).52

5 The FO­AG53 shall set the cus­toms duty rate for products with a threshold price in such a way that the im­port price lies with­in the band.

6 In­so­far as the sale of sim­il­ar do­mest­ic products does not come un­der threat, the EAER may set the cus­toms duty rate lower than in­dic­ated in para­graph 5.

7 The cus­toms duty rates may not en­tail any ele­ments of pro­tec­tion vis-à-visin­dustry.54

49 Amended by No III of the FA of 24 March 2000 on the Re­peal of the Grain Act, in force since 1 Ju­ly 2001 (AS 2001 1539; BBl 1999 9261).

50 Second sen­tence amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

51 Term in ac­cord­ance with No I 28 of the O of 15 June 2012 (Re­or­gan­isa­tion of Fed­er­al De­part­ments), in force since 1 Jan. 2013 (AS 2012 3655). This amend­ment has been made throughout the text.

52 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

53 Term in ac­cord­ance with No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075). This amend­ment has been made throughout the text.

54 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 21 Tariff quotas  

1 Tar­iff quotas for ag­ri­cul­tur­al products are set out in An­nex 2 to the Cus­toms Tar­iff Act of 9 Oc­to­ber 198655 (Gen­er­al Tar­iff).

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may modi­fy tar­iff quotas and, if ap­plic­able, their staggered in­tro­duc­tion as part of the Gen­er­al Tar­iff.

3 The terms of Art­icle 17 ap­ply to the set­ting and ad­just­ment of tar­iff quotas as well as to their staggered in­tro­duc­tion.

4 If mar­ket con­di­tions re­quire the fre­quent ad­just­ment of tar­iff quotas, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may del­eg­ate re­spons­ib­il­ity for ad­just­ing tar­iff quotas and for stag­ger­ing their in­tro­duc­tion to the EAER or to an agency that is part of the Fed­er­al De­part­ment.

5 The pro­vi­sions of this Act ap­ply mu­tatis mutandis to ad­di­tion­al tar­iff quotas as defined un­der the terms of Art­icle 4 para­graph 3 let­ter c of the Cus­toms Tar­iff Act of 9 Oc­to­ber 1986.

Art. 22 Allocation of tariff quotas  

1 Com­pet­i­tion must be main­tained in the al­loc­a­tion of tar­iff quotas.

2 The au­thor­it­ies re­spons­ible shall al­loc­ate tar­iff quotas ac­cord­ing to the fol­low­ing pro­ced­ures and cri­ter­ia in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
by auc­tion;
b.
ac­cord­ing to do­mest­ic pur­chas­ing ob­lig­a­tions;
c.
on the basis of the quant­ity re­ques­ted;
d.
ac­cord­ing to the or­der of re­ceipt of ap­plic­a­tions for per­mits;
e.56
ac­cord­ing to the or­der of as­sess­ments;
f.
on the basis of the ap­plic­ant’s im­ports to date.

3 Pro­mo­tion of Swiss pro­duc­tion as in­dic­ated in para­graph 2 let­ter b is defined as the pur­chase of sim­il­ar goods pro­duced in Switzer­land and of stand­ard trade qual­ity.

4 In or­der to avoid ab­use, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ex­clude cer­tain im­port­ers from en­ti­tle­ment.

5 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may del­eg­ate re­spons­ib­il­ity for set­ting the cri­ter­ia for the al­loc­a­tion of tar­iff quotas to the EAER.

6 The al­loc­a­tion of tar­iff quotas shall be made pub­lic.

56 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 23 Compensatory payments and charges  

1 If the al­loc­a­tion of a tar­iff quota share is de­pend­ent on pro­mo­tion of Swiss pro­duc­tion (Art. 22 para­graph 2 let­ter b), the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may de­cide on ap­pro­pri­ate com­pens­at­ory pay­ments or charges if:

a.
such pro­mo­tion is not ne­ces­sary in view of its pur­pose; or
b.
it is im­possible for the im­port­er to pro­mote Swiss pro­duc­tion or do­ing so would lead to un­reas­on­able hard­ship.

2 Com­pens­at­ory pay­ments or charges must be set in such a way that they bal­ance out the ad­vant­ages gained by the im­port­er from not hav­ing to pro­mote Swiss pro­duc­tion.

Art. 24 Import permits, protective measures  

1 In or­der to gath­er stat­ist­ics on im­ports, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may de­cide that cer­tain ag­ri­cul­tur­al products re­quire an im­port per­mit.

2 In view of the pro­tect­ive meas­ures that the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may in­tro­duce, the EAER is au­thor­ised to sus­pend the is­su­ing of im­port per­mits un­til the Fed­er­al Coun­cil has taken a de­cision.

3 The ap­plic­a­tion of pro­tec­tion clauses in in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments on the ag­ri­cul­tur­al sec­tor are gov­erned by Art­icle 11 of the Cus­toms Tar­iff Act of 9 Oc­to­ber 198657.

4 Para­graph 2 does not ap­ply to the ap­plic­a­tion of pro­tec­tion clauses in in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments un­der:

a.
Art­icle 1 of the Fed­er­al Act of 25 June 198258 on In­ter­na­tion­al Trade Meas­ures; and
b.
Art­icle 7 of the Cus­toms Tar­iff Act of 9 Oc­to­ber 1986.
Art. 25 Voluntary contributions  

1 Where the branches in ques­tion pay taxes on im­por­ted ag­ri­cul­tur­al products in fa­vour of do­mest­ic products on a vol­un­tary basis, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may pre­scribe the max­im­um rate for such taxes in or­der to com­ply with in­ter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments. It may del­eg­ate this task to the EAER.

2 If the max­im­um rate for such taxes is re­duced be­cause of in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments, the taxes are mod­i­fied at the same rate as cus­toms du­ties. De­vi­ation from this rule is al­lowed in jus­ti­fied cases.

Section 4 …

Art. 2659  

59 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2010 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Section 5 Market Observation 60

60 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 27  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall ob­serve mar­ket prices that are af­fected by fed­er­al ag­ri­cul­tur­al meas­ures at vari­ous levels, from pro­duc­tion to con­sump­tion. It shall reg­u­late the in­volve­ment of mar­ket play­ers.61

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall des­ig­nate the agency to carry out the ne­ces­sary data col­lec­tion and in­form the gen­er­al pub­lic.

61 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Section 6 Gene Technology62

62 Inserted by Annex to No 8 of the Gene Technology Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

Art. 27a  

1 Ge­net­ic­ally mod­i­fied ag­ri­cul­tur­al products or aids to pro­duc­tion63 may only be pro­duced, reared, im­por­ted, re­leased or put in­to cir­cu­la­tion if the re­quire­ments of this Act and in par­tic­u­lar those of le­gis­la­tion on gene tech­no­logy, en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion, an­im­al pro­tec­tion and food­stuffs are met.

2 Re­gard­less of any fur­ther pro­vi­sion, in par­tic­u­lar in le­gis­la­tion on gene tech­no­logy, en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion and an­im­al pro­tec­tion, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may provide for man­dat­ory per­mits or oth­er meas­ures for the pro­duc­tion and sale of such goods or aids to pro­duc­tion.

63 Term in ac­cord­ance with No II 3 of the FA of 19 March 2010, in force since 1 Aug. 2010 (AS 2010 3233; BBl 2009 5435). This amend­ment has been made throughout the text.

Section 7 Patented Aids to Production and Agricultural Capital Goods64

64 Inserted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 27b  

1 If a pat­ent hold­er has put aids to pro­duc­tion or ag­ri­cul­tur­al cap­it­al goods in­to cir­cu­la­tion with­in Switzer­land or abroad or has agreed to their be­ing put in­to cir­cu­la­tion, such aids or goods may be im­por­ted, sold on and used com­mer­cially.

2 Ag­ri­cul­tur­al cap­it­al goods are in­vest­ment goods such as tract­ors, ma­chinery, tools and in­stall­a­tions and their com­pon­ent parts that are in­ten­ded pre­dom­in­antly for use in ag­ri­cul­ture.

Chapter 2 The Dairy Farming Sector

Section 1 Scope of Application 65

65 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 28 66  

1 This Chapter ap­plies to cow’s milk.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ex­tend cer­tain pro­vi­sions, in par­tic­u­lar Art­icles 38 and 39, to cov­er goat’s and sheep’s milk.67

66 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

67 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 2968  

68 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Section 2 …

Art. 30–3669  

69 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 36a and 36b70  

70 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234). Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Section 3 Standard Contract for the Milk Sector71

71 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 37  

1 Branch or­gan­isa­tions in the milk sec­tor are re­spons­ible for draw­ing up a stand­ard con­tract for the pur­chase and sale of un­treated milk. The pro­vi­sions of the stand­ard con­tract may not have a marked det­ri­ment­al ef­fect on com­pet­i­tion. The con­tract­ing part­ners are re­spons­ible for set­ting prices and quant­it­ies.

2 A stand­ard con­tract with­in the mean­ing of this Art­icle is a con­tract that has a min­im­um peri­od of valid­ity and pos­sible ex­ten­sion of one year and in­cludes terms con­cern­ing quant­it­ies, prices and meth­ods of pay­ment.

3 At the re­quest of a branch or­gan­isa­tion, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may de­clare the stand­ard con­tract to be gen­er­ally bind­ing in re­la­tion to all stages of the pur­chase and sale of un­treated milk.

4 The re­quire­ments that must be met by the branch or­gan­isa­tions and the de­cision mak­ing are gov­erned by Art­icle 9 para­graph 1.

5 Any lit­ig­a­tion arising from the stand­ard con­tract or in­di­vidu­al con­tracts is sub­ject to the jur­is­dic­tion of the civil courts.

6 If a branch or­gan­isa­tion is un­able to agree on a stand­ard con­tract, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may is­sue tem­por­ary reg­u­la­tions on the pur­chase and sale of un­treated milk.

Section 4 Market Support

Art. 38 Additional payment for milk used in cheese-making  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may make an ad­di­tion­al pay­ment to pro­du­cers for milk that is used in cheese-mak­ing.

2 The ad­di­tion­al pay­ment amounts to 15 cents, un­der de­duc­tion of the amount of the ad­di­tion­al pay­ment for com­mer­cial milk in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 40. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify the re­quire­ments for the ad­di­tion­al pay­ment. It may ex­clude low-fat cheeses from the ad­di­tion­al pay­ment.72

3 It may ad­just this amount de­pend­ing on trends in quant­it­ies.73

72 Amended by An­nex 2 of the FD of 15 Dec. 2017 (Ex­port com­pet­i­tion and ex­port sub­sidies), in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 3939; BBl 2017 4351).

73 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337). Amended by An­nex 2 of the FD of 15 Dec. 2017 (Ex­port com­pet­i­tion and ex­port sub­sidies), in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 3939; BBl 2017 4351).

Art. 39 Additional payment for non-use of silage  

1 Pro­du­cers of milk that is used in cheese-mak­ing and ob­tained without the use of sil­age re­ceive an ad­di­tion­al pay­ment.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall fix the level of this ad­di­tion­al pay­ment and stip­u­late the de­gree of firm­ness of the cheese and the types of cheese that en­title the pro­du­cer to an ad­di­tion­al pay­ment. It may ex­clude low-fat cheeses from the ad­di­tion­al pay­ment.74

3 This ad­di­tion­al pay­ment is fixed at 3 cents. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ad­just this amount de­pend­ing on trends in quant­it­ies.75

74 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

75 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337). Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 40 Additional payment for commercial milk 76  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may make an ad­di­tion­al pay­ment to pro­du­cers for com­mer­cial milk.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify the level of and the re­quire­ments for the ad­di­tion­al pay­ment.

3 The branch or­gan­isa­tions may take joint self-help meas­ures re­lat­ing to the use of the ad­di­tion­al pay­ment in terms of para­graph 1.

76 Amended by An­nex 2 of the FD of 15 Dec. 2017 (Ex­port com­pet­i­tion and ex­port sub­sidies), in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 3939; BBl 2017 4351).

Art. 41 and 4277  

77 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Section 5 Special Measures

Art. 43 Mandatory registration  

1 The milk pro­cessor shall in­form the agency des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil:

a.
of the quant­ity of milk sup­plied by pro­du­cers; and
b.
how he or she has pro­cessed the milk.

2 Pro­du­cers who sell milk and dairy products dir­ect must in­form the agency of the quant­it­ies pro­duced and sold dir­ect.

378

78 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234). Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 4479  

79 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 45 Payment for collaboration  

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall com­pensate the dairy farm­ing or­gan­isa­tions that it en­trusts with du­ties un­der pub­lic law.

Chapter 3 Animal Husbandry

Section 1 Structural Guidance

Art. 46 Maximum stock levels  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late max­im­um stock levels for each farm for vari­ous live­stock spe­cies.

2 If vari­ous live­stock spe­cies are kept on a farm, the sum of the in­di­vidu­al per­cent­age shares of the rel­ev­ant max­im­um stock levels may not ex­ceed 100 per cent.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may al­low ex­cep­tions for:

a.
fed­er­al ex­per­i­ment­al farms and the ag­ri­cul­tur­al re­search in­sti­tutes, the poultry hus­bandry school in Zol­likofen and the Swiss Test­ing Sta­tion for Fat­ten­ing Per­form­ance and Car­cass Qual­ity in Sem­pach;
b.80
farms that feed pigs with by-products is­sued from milk and food pro­cessing, thereby ful­filling dis­pos­al man­age­ment tasks in the pub­lic in­terest that are of re­gion­al sig­ni­fic­ance.

80 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 47 Tax  

1 Farms that ex­ceed the max­im­um stock level un­der Art­icle 46 must pay an an­nu­al tax.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall set the rate of tax so that keep­ing an ex­cess­ive num­ber of an­im­als is un­eco­nom­ic­al.

3 Where two or more man­agers keep an­im­als on the same farm, each of the man­agers shall pay a tax which is pro­por­tion­al to their share of live­stock.

4 The di­vi­sion of farms to cir­cum­vent the pro­vi­sions on max­im­um stock levels shall not be re­cog­nised.

Section 2 Slaughter Animals, Meat, Sheep’s Wool and Eggs 81

81 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 48 Allocation of tariff quotas 82  

1 The tar­iff quotas for slaughter an­im­als and meat shall be auc­tioned.

2 The tar­iff quota shares for meat from cattle (not in­clud­ing fil­leted hindquarter cuts) and for sheep shall be al­loc­ated at a rate of 10 per cent based on the num­ber of an­im­als pur­chased by auc­tion from su­per­vised pub­lic slaughter an­im­al mar­kets. Ex­emp­ted there­from is kosh­er and halal meat.

2bisThe tar­iff quota shares for meat from cattle, sheep, goats and horses shall be al­loc­ated at a rate of 40 per cent based on the num­ber of slaughtered an­im­als. Ex­emp­ted there­from is kosh­er and halal meat.83

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may dis­pense with al­loc­a­tion ar­range­ments for cer­tain products un­der tar­iff head­ings 0206, 0210 and 1602.

82 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004. Paras 1 and 2 come in­to force on 1 Oct. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

83 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2015 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 49 Classification by quality  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall is­sue dir­ect­ives and cri­ter­ia for clas­si­fy­ing the qual­ity of slaughtered cattle, horses, pigs, sheep and goats.

2 It may:

a.
de­clare the use of these clas­si­fic­a­tion cri­ter­ia to be man­dat­ory;
b.
re­quire qual­ity clas­si­fic­a­tion to be car­ried out by a neut­ral agency in cer­tain cases;
c.84
reg­u­late the pro­ced­ure for as­cer­tain­ing the car­cass weight.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may del­eg­ate the task of de­term­in­ing the clas­si­fic­a­tion cri­ter­ia to the FO­AG.

84 In­ser­ted by An­nex No II 6 of the Food­stuffs Act of 20 June 2014, in force since 1 May 2017 (AS 2017 249; BBl 2011 5571).

Art. 50 Subsidising measures to relieve the meat market 85  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may provide sub­sidies for tem­por­ary mar­ket re­lief meas­ures in the event of sea­son­al or oth­er tem­por­ary sur­pluses in the meat mar­ket.

2 From 2007, the Con­fed­er­a­tion may provide sub­sidies to the can­tons for the or­gan­isa­tion, con­duct, su­per­vi­sion and in­fra­struc­ture of pub­lic mar­kets in the moun­tain re­gions.

85 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 51 Delegation of public tasks  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may del­eg­ate the fol­low­ing tasks to private or­gan­isa­tions:

a.
con­duct­ing tem­por­ary mar­ket re­lief meas­ures in the case of sea­son­al or oth­er tem­por­ary sur­pluses in the meat mar­ket;
b.
su­per­vising mar­ket activ­it­ies in pub­lic mar­kets and in abat­toirs;
c.
clas­si­fy­ing liv­ing and slaughtered an­im­als ac­cord­ing to their qual­ity.86

2 The private or­gan­isa­tions shall be re­mu­ner­ated for car­ry­ing out these tasks.87

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall ap­point an agency to veri­fy wheth­er the private or­gan­isa­tions have car­ried out their tasks cost-ef­fect­ively.

86 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

87 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 51bis Sale of sheep’s wool 88  

The Con­fed­er­a­tion may take meas­ures re­lat­ing to the sale of sheep’s wool. It may sup­port do­mest­ic sales through sub­sidies.

88 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 52 Subsidies for domestic egg production 89  

The Con­fed­er­a­tion may provide sub­sidies for sales meas­ures to be­ne­fit do­mest­ic egg pro­duc­tion.

89 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 5390  

90 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Chapter 4 Arable Farming

Art. 54 Subsidies for individual crops 91  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may pay sub­sidies for in­di­vidu­al crops in or­der to:

a.
main­tain the pro­duc­tion ca­pa­city and ef­fi­ciency of in­di­vidu­al pro­cessing chains to en­sure ad­equate pro­vi­sion for the pop­u­la­tion;
b.
en­sure an ad­equate sup­ply of fod­der for live­stock.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­cides on the crops and the amount of the sub­sidies.

2bis For sug­ar beet for sug­ar pro­duc­tion, a con­tri­bu­tion of 2,100 francs per hec­tare and year shall be paid un­til 2026. If the sug­ar beet is grown in ac­cord­ance with the re­quire­ments for or­gan­ic farm­ing or in­teg­rated pro­duc­tion, an ad­di­tion­al con­tri­bu­tion of 200 Swiss francs per hec­tare per year shall be paid un­til 2026.92

3 Sub­sidies may also be paid for farm­land in the for­eign part of the Swiss bor­der zone un­der Art­icle 43 para­graph 2 of the Cus­toms Tar­iff Act of 18 March 200593.

91 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

92 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 1 Oct 2021, in force since 1 March 2022 (AS 2022 85; BBl 2021 457, 748).

93 SR 631.0

Art. 55 Additional payment for grain 94  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may make an ad­di­tion­al pay­ment to pro­du­cers for grain. The Con­fed­er­a­tion may re­strict the ad­di­tion­al pay­ment to grain for hu­man con­sump­tion.

2 The ad­di­tion­al pay­ment shall be based on the budgeted re­sources and the quant­ity or the area un­der cul­tiv­a­tion that is eli­gible for sub­sidies. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify the re­quire­ments for mak­ing the ad­di­tion­al pay­ment.

3 The branch or­gan­isa­tions may take joint self-help meas­ures re­lat­ing to the use of the ad­di­tion­al pay­ment in terms of para­graph 1.

94 Amended by An­nex 2 of the FD of 15 Dec. 2017 (Ex­port com­pet­i­tion and ex­port sub­sidies), in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 3939; BBl 2017 4351).

Art. 5695  

95 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 5796  

96 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22. June 2007, with ef­fect from 1 Ju­ly 2009 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 58 Fruit 97  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may in­tro­duce meas­ures re­gard­ing the pro­cessing of pomaceous fruit, stone-fruit, ber­ries and fruit products as well as grapes. It may pay sub­sidies for pro­cessing fruit.

2 It may sub­sid­ise joint meas­ures taken by pro­du­cers to ad­apt the pro­duc­tion of fruit and ve­get­ables to mar­ket re­quire­ments. Such sub­sidies may be paid un­til the end of 2017 at the latest.

97 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 5998  

98 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Chapter 5 Wine Production 99

99 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 60 Permits and registration of vine planting  

1 A per­mit from the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies is re­quired for plant­ing new vines.

2 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies must be in­formed if ex­ist­ing vine­yards are re­planted.

3 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall is­sue per­mits for the plant­ing of vines for the pur­pose of wine pro­duc­tion if the planned site is suit­able for this pur­pose.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall set out the ba­sic con­di­tions for is­su­ing per­mits and re­gis­ter­ing the plant­ing of vines. It may al­low ex­cep­tions.

5 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies may is­sue a tem­por­ary and re­gion­al ban on the plant­ing of new vines if meas­ures for re­liev­ing the mar­ket or for the con­ver­sion of vine­yards are be­ing fun­ded or if the mar­ket situ­ation re­quires such ac­tion to be taken.100

100 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 61 Register of vineyards  

The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies keep a re­gister of vine­yards that in­cludes any spe­cial char­ac­ter­ist­ics.

Art. 62 Register of grape varieties  

1 FO­AG ex­am­ines the suit­ab­il­ity of grape vari­et­ies.

2 It keeps a re­gister of grape vari­et­ies with in­dic­a­tions of suit­ab­il­ity.

Art. 63 Classification 101  

1 Wines are di­vided in­to the fol­low­ing classes:

a.
wines with an ap­pel­la­tion d’ori­gine con­trôlée;
b.
do­mest­ic wines;
c.
table wines.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall draw up a list of the cri­ter­ia gov­ern­ing the clas­si­fic­a­tion of wines with an ap­pel­la­tion d’ori­gine con­trôléeand do­mest­ic wines. It may stip­u­late a min­im­um level of nat­ur­al sug­ar con­tent and a max­im­um yield per unit of land area, tak­ing in­to ac­count the pro­duc­tion con­di­tions spe­cif­ic to a giv­en area.

3 Oth­er­wise, the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall set out the re­quire­ments for each cri­terion with re­gard to wines with an ap­pel­la­tion d’ori­gine con­trôlée and do­mest­ic wines pro­duced with­in their bor­ders and un­der their own tra­di­tion­al des­ig­na­tion.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall stip­u­late the re­quire­ments con­cern­ing do­mest­ic wines that are sold without a tra­di­tion­al des­ig­na­tion and for table wines. It may define the terms re­lat­ing spe­cific­ally to wine, in par­tic­u­lar tra­di­tion­al terms, and stip­u­late their use.

5 It shall draw up reg­u­la­tions for the de­clas­si­fic­a­tion of wines that do not meet the min­im­um re­quire­ments.

6 The terms of Art­icle 16 para­graphs 6, 6bis, 7 and 16b ap­ply to the la­belling of wines with an ap­pel­la­tion d’ori­gine con­trôlée and of oth­er wines with geo­graph­ic­al in­dic­a­tions.

101 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 64 Verification 102  

1 In or­der to pro­tect des­ig­na­tions and la­bels, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall is­sue reg­u­la­tions for the veri­fic­a­tion of grape har­vests and trad­ing in wine. It shall stip­u­late re­quire­ments that must be met by the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies, the pro­du­cers, the cel­larers and wine traders, in par­tic­u­lar with re­spect to re­gis­tra­tion, ac­com­pa­ny­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion, cel­lar ac­counts and in­vent­or­ies. In­so­far as the pro­tec­tion of des­ig­na­tions and la­bels is not com­prom­ised, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may al­low ex­cep­tions and sim­pli­fic­a­tions. It shall co­ordin­ate the veri­fic­a­tion pro­cess.

2 In or­der to sim­pli­fy col­lab­or­a­tion between the veri­fic­a­tion agen­cies, it may fore­see a cent­ral data­base. It shall stip­u­late re­quire­ments for such a data­base with re­gard to con­tent and op­er­a­tion as well as data qual­ity, and set out the con­di­tions for ac­cess and use of the said data.

3 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies are re­spons­ible for car­ry­ing out the grape har­vest veri­fic­a­tion. The Con­fed­er­a­tion may of­fer a glob­al amount to help fund the can­ton­al mon­it­or­ing costs, the amount be­ing based on the area of vine­yards in the can­ton in ques­tion.

4 The trade in wine is mon­itored by an agency des­ig­nated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

102 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 65103  

103 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 66104  

104 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 67–69105  

105 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Title 3 Direct Payments106

106 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Chapter 1 General Provisions

Art. 70 Basic principle  

1 Farm­ers re­ceive dir­ect pay­ments as com­pens­a­tion for the pub­lic ser­vices they provide.

2 Dir­ect pay­ments in­clude:

a.
sub­sidies for farm­land;
b.
sub­sidies for en­sur­ing sup­ply;
c.
biod­iversity sub­sidies;
d.
sub­sidies for the qual­ity of the land­scape;
e.
sub­sidies for pro­duc­tion sys­tems;
f.
sub­sidies for the ef­fi­cient use of re­sources;
g.
bridging sub­sidies.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil stip­u­lates the level of sub­sidies, tak­ing in­to ac­count the ex­tent of the pub­lic ser­vices provided the work in­volved in provid­ing such ser­vices and the po­ten­tial mar­ket yield.

Art. 70a Requirements  

1 Dir­ect pay­ments are made on con­di­tion that:

a.
the busi­ness is run as a farm;
b.
proof of eco­lo­gic­al per­form­ance can be provided;
c.
ag­ri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion meth­ods com­ply with the pro­vi­sions of le­gis­la­tion on the pro­tec­tion of wa­ters, the en­vir­on­ment and an­im­al wel­fare;
d.
the land farmed does not lie with­in a des­ig­nated build­ing zone that has been leg­ally ex­cluded un­der plan­ning le­gis­la­tion after this pro­vi­sion comes in­to force;
e.
a min­im­um amount of la­bour on the farm in stand­ard la­bour units is reached;
f.
a min­im­um amount of work is car­ried out by la­bour­ers em­ployed by the farm;
g.
the farm­er is not over a cer­tain age;
h.
the farm­er has a qual­i­fic­a­tion in ag­ri­cul­ture.

2 Proof of eco­lo­gic­al per­form­ance in­cludes:

a.
ap­pro­pri­ate con­di­tions for live­stock;
b.
bal­anced use of fer­til­isers;
c.
an ad­equate pro­por­tion of land set aside for biod­iversity;
d.
reg­u­la­tion use of ob­jects in­cluded in in­vent­or­ies of na­tion­al in­terest un­der the terms of the Fed­er­al Act of 1 Ju­ly 1966107 on Nature and Cul­tur­al Her­it­age;
e.
reg­u­lar crop ro­ta­tion;
f.
ap­pro­pri­ate soil pro­tec­tion;
g.
spe­cif­ic choice and ap­plic­a­tion of plant pro­tec­tion products.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil:

a.
shall set out the terms for proof of eco­lo­gic­al per­form­ance;
b.
shall set out the terms for val­ues and re­quire­ments in re­la­tion to para­graph 1 let­ters a and e–h;
c.
may lim­it the amount of dir­ect pay­ments per stand­ard la­bour unit;
d.
may al­low ex­cep­tions to let­ter c and para­graph 1 let­ter h;
e.
may al­low ex­cep­tions to para­graph 1 let­ter a for dir­ect pay­ments for biod­iversity and land­scape qual­ity;
f.
shall set the lim­its in re­la­tion to the area per farm above which pay­ments are gradu­ated or re­duced.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late fur­ther re­quire­ments and ob­lig­a­tions re­gard­ing dir­ect pay­ments.

5 It shall de­cide on the areas for which dir­ect pay­ments are made.

Art. 70b Special requirements for summer pastures  

1 In sum­mer pas­ture areas, dir­ect pay­ments are made to farm­ers who use a sum­mer graz­ing farm, who be­long to a sum­mer graz­ing co­oper­at­ive or who graze their live­stock on sum­mer pas­tures.

2 The con­di­tions stated in Art­icle 70a para­graph 1 do not ap­ply to sum­mer pas­tures, with the ex­cep­tion of let­ter c.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall set out the farm­ing re­quire­ments for sum­mer pas­tures.

Chapter 2 Subsidies

Art. 71 Subsidies for farmland  

1 Sub­sidies are paid for main­tain­ing open farm­land. These sub­sidies in­clude:

a.
a pay­ment per hec­tare, gradu­ated by zone, in or­der to en­cour­age the farm­ing of in­di­vidu­al zones;
b.
a gradu­ated dif­fi­culty pay­ment per hec­tare based on gradi­ent and type of land-use in hilly areas in or­der to en­cour­age farm­ing un­der to­po­graph­ic­ally dif­fi­cult con­di­tions;
c.
in ad­di­tion, a gradu­ated pay­ment based on the pro­por­tion of hay mead­ows on steep slopes;
d.
a pay­ment for graz­ing cer­tain live­stock for 100 days on sum­mer pas­tures for farms run on a year-round basis in or­der to en­cour­age the use of Alpine pas­tures;
e.
a sum­mer graz­ing sub­sidy, gradu­ated ac­cord­ing to live­stock cat­egory, per live­stock unit on sum­mer graz­ing or per nor­mal stock in or­der to en­cour­age the use and main­ten­ance of sum­mer pas­tures.

2 In the case of sum­mer graz­ing sub­sidies, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall stip­u­late the ac­cept­able level of oc­cu­pa­tion and live­stock cat­egor­ies for which the sub­sidy is paid.

Art. 72 Subsidies for ensuring supplies  

1 Sub­sidies for en­sur­ing sup­plies are paid to main­tain re­li­able food sup­plies for the pop­u­la­tion. These sub­sidies in­clude:

a.
a ba­sic pay­ment per hec­tare to main­tain pro­duc­tion ca­pa­city;
b.
a pay­ment per hec­tare to en­sure an ad­equate pro­por­tion of open farm­land with long-term crop­ping;
c.
a gradu­ated pay­ment per hec­tare for de­gree of dif­fi­culty in up­land and moun­tain areas to main­tain pro­duc­tion ca­pa­city un­der cli­mat­ic dif­fi­culties.

2 In the case of graz­ing land, sub­sidies are only paid if the farm has a min­im­um num­ber of cattle. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall stip­u­late min­im­um live­stock num­bers. It may de­cide that no min­im­um is ne­ces­sary for cul­tiv­ated mead­ows and areas of land re­served for pro­mot­ing biod­iversity, and set a lower ba­sic pay­ment for the lat­ter.

3 Sub­sidies for en­sur­ing sup­ply may also be paid for land in oth­er coun­tries along the Swiss bor­der un­der the terms of Art­icle 43 para­graph a of the Cus­toms Tar­iff Act of 18 March 2005108.

Art. 73 Biodiversity subsidies  

1 Biod­iversity sub­sidies are paid in or­der to pro­mote and main­tain biod­iversity. These sub­sidies in­clude:

a.
a gradu­ated pay­ment per hec­tare, de­pend­ing on the type and qual­ity of the area re­served for pro­mot­ing biod­iversity and the zone, with the aim of en­cour­aging a vari­ety of spe­cies and hab­it­ats;
b.
a gradu­ated pay­ment per hec­tare, de­pend­ing on the type of area re­served for pro­mot­ing biod­iversity, aimed at pro­mot­ing con­nect­ing cor­ridors.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide on the types of areas re­served for pro­mot­ing biod­iversity for which sub­sidies are paid.

3 In the case of cor­ridors that con­nect biod­iversity areas, the Con­fed­er­a­tion shall pay a max­im­um of 90 per cent of the sub­sidies. The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall cov­er the re­main­ing part.

Art. 74 Subsidies for the quality of the landscape  

1 Sub­sidies are paid for the qual­ity of the land­scape in or­der to main­tain, pro­mote and fur­ther de­vel­op a var­ied land­scape.

2 The Con­fed­er­a­tion provides fund­ing to the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies on a per hec­tare or per nor­mal stock basis if:

a.
the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies or an­oth­er ap­pro­pri­ate re­gion­al agency has set tar­gets and drawn up meas­ures aimed at achiev­ing these tar­gets;
b.
the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies and farm­ers have agreed on farm­ing prac­tices cor­res­pond­ing to such meas­ures; and
c.
the tar­gets and meas­ures meet the re­quire­ments for sus­tain­able spa­tial de­vel­op­ment.

3 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall provide a max­im­um of 90 per cent of the sub­sidies guar­an­teed by the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies.

Art. 75 Subsidies for production systems  

1 Sub­sidies are paid for pro­duc­tion sys­tems to pro­mote near-nat­ur­al and en­vir­on­ment­ally and an­im­al friendly types of pro­duc­tion. These sub­sidies in­clude:

a.
a gradu­ated pay­ment per hec­tare, de­pend­ing on type of use, for pro­duc­tion meth­ods used throughout the farm;
b.
a gradu­ated pay­ment per hec­tare, de­pend­ing on type of use, for pro­duc­tion meth­ods used on part of the farm;
c.
a gradu­ated pay­ment per live­stock unit, de­pend­ing on the cat­egory of an­im­al, for es­pe­cially an­im­al-friendly meth­ods of pro­duc­tion.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide what types of pro­duc­tion are to be pro­moted.

Art. 76 Subsidies for the efficient use of resources  

1 Sub­sidies for the ef­fi­cient use of re­sources are paid to pro­mote the sus­tain­able use of re­sources such as soil, wa­ter and air, as well as to im­prove ef­fi­ciency with re­gard to the use of aids to pro­duc­tion.

2 Sub­sidies are paid for meas­ures aimed at in­tro­du­cing re­source-sav­ing tech­niques or farm­ing meth­ods. Such sub­sidies are of a fixed dur­a­tion only.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide what meas­ures are to be pro­moted. The sub­sidies are paid if:

a.
the meas­ure in ques­tion has been shown to be ef­fect­ive;
b.
the meas­ure in ques­tion shall con­tin­ue to be used once sub­sidies cease;
c.
the meas­ure in ques­tion is eco­nom­ic­ally ac­cept­able for the farm for the fore­see­able fu­ture.
Art. 77 Bridging subsidies  

1 Bridging sub­sidies are paid to en­sure de­vel­op­ment un­der so­cially ac­cept­able terms.

2 Bridging sub­sidies are based on the ap­proved cred­its minus sub­sidies un­der Art­icles 71–76, 77a and 77b, and com­pens­at­ory pay­ments un­der Art­icle 62a of the Fed­er­al Act on the Pro­tec­tion of Wa­ters of 24 Janu­ary 1991109.

3 Bridging sub­sidies are paid per farm. The sub­sidy for the in­di­vidu­al farm is based on the dif­fer­ence between the gen­er­al dir­ect pay­ments be­fore the change of sys­tem and the sub­sidies ac­cord­ing to art­icles 71 para­graph 1 let­ters a–c and 72 after the change of sys­tem. The dif­fer­ence is de­term­ined on the basis of the struc­ture of the farm be­fore the change of sys­tem.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide on:

a.
the cal­cu­la­tion of sub­sidies for in­di­vidu­al farms;
b.
the mod­al­it­ies in the case of trans­fer of own­er­ship of farms and ma­jor struc­tur­al changes;
c.
lim­its in re­la­tion to the tax­able in­come and wealth of the farm­ers above which sub­sidies are re­duced or re­fused, a high­er lim­it be­ing set for mar­ried farm­ers.

Title 3a Sustainable Use of Natural Resources110

110 Inserted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 77a Principle  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall with­in the lim­its of the ap­proved cred­its provide sub­sidies to re­gion­al and branch spe­cif­ic pro­jects aimed at im­prov­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity in the use nat­ur­al re­sources.

2 Sub­sidies are gran­ted to the re­spons­ible agency provided:

a.
the meas­ures planned in the pro­ject are co­ordin­ated with each oth­er;
b.
the meas­ures are ex­pec­ted to be­come self-sup­port­ing in the fore­see­able fu­ture.
Art. 77b Level of subsidies  

1 The level of the sub­sidies is gov­erned by the eco­lo­gic­al and ag­ro­nom­ic ef­fect of the pro­ject, in par­tic­u­lar the in­crease in ef­fi­ciency when us­ing sub­stances and en­ergy. The level amounts to a max­im­um of 80 per cent of the al­low­able costs of real­ising the pro­jects and meas­ures.

2 If the Con­fed­er­a­tion sim­ul­tan­eously grants sub­sidies or com­pens­at­ory pay­ments un­der this Act or the Fed­er­al Act of 1 Ju­ly 1966111 on the Pro­tec­tion of Nature and Cul­tur­al Her­it­age or com­pens­at­ory pay­ments un­der the Wa­ters Pro­tec­tion Act of 24 Janu­ary 1991112 for the same meas­ures on the same area of land, these sub­sidies or com­pens­at­ory pay­ments shall be de­duc­ted from the al­low­able costs.

Title 4 Social Support Measures 113

113 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Chapter 1 Support for Farmers 114

114 Inserted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 78 Basic principle  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may provide funds to the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies for sup­port for farm­ers.

2 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies may grant farm­ers sup­port for their farm in or­der to al­le­vi­ate or pre­vent fin­an­cial hard­ship in­curred through no fault of their own or due to changed eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances.115

3 In­ter­ven­tion through fed­er­al fund­ing is con­di­tion­al on ap­pro­pri­ate fin­an­cial par­ti­cip­a­tion by the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies. Any con­tri­bu­tion from third parties shall be taken in­to ac­count.

115 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 79 Granting of support to farmers  

1 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies grant sup­port to farm­ers in the form of an in­terest-free loan in or­der to:

a.
re­struc­ture ex­ist­ing debts to re­duce the in­terest pay­able;
b.
tem­por­ar­ily al­le­vi­ate ex­cep­tion­al fin­an­cial li­ab­il­it­ies.

1bis Farm­ers may also be gran­ted sup­port in the case of a farm­er giv­ing up his or her farm in or­der to con­vert ex­ist­ing loans or man­dat­ory amort­isa­tion in­to an in­terest-free loan in­so­far as the debt is ser­vice­able after such a loan has been gran­ted.116

2 The loans are gran­ted based on a rul­ing for a max­im­um of 20 years.

3 If the loan is se­cured by a charge on im­mov­able prop­erty, the pub­lic deed con­tain­ing the pledge agree­ment may be re­placed by a rul­ing from the au­thor­it­ies which guar­an­tees the loan.117

116 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

117 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 80 Requirements  

1 As a rule, loans to sup­port farm­ers un­der the terms of Art­icle 79 para­graph 1 are gran­ted if the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments are met:118

a.119
the farm must provide a liv­ing in the longer term, if ne­ces­sary with a second in­come from out­side the ag­ri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, and re­quire an ap­pro­pri­ate and at least a nor­mal amount of la­bour;
b.
the farm is be­ing run on an ef­fi­cient basis;
c.
the level of debt after a loan has been gran­ted is ser­vice­able.

2 In or­der to en­sure land-use or a suf­fi­cient pop­u­la­tion dens­ity, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may set a lower level of la­bour than that in­dic­ated in para­graph 1 let­ter a for farms in up­land and moun­tain areas.120

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late fur­ther re­quire­ments and ob­lig­a­tions.

118 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

119 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

120 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 81 Approval by the FOAG  

1 If a single loan or a loan com­bined with the bal­ance of earli­er loans to sup­port farm­ers and in­vest­ment loans ex­ceeds a cer­tain amount (lim­it), the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall ask for the ap­prov­al of the FO­AG. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil sets the lim­it.

2 The FO­AG shall in­form the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies with­in 30 days wheth­er it ap­proves of the de­cision taken or wheth­er it will take a de­cision it­self. Be­fore tak­ing a de­cision it con­sults the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies.

Art. 82 Repayment in the case of a profit on a sale 121  

If a farm or part of a farm is sold at a profit, the out­stand­ing bal­ance on the loan must be re­paid.

121 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 83 Calling in the loan  

The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies may call in the loan if it has good reas­on to do so.

Art. 84 Administrative costs  

1 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies are li­able for ad­min­is­trat­ive costs.

2 They may not charge for ex­penses.

Art. 85 Appropriation of repaid debts and interest  

1 Money re­paid on loans is used by the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies for new loans to farm­ers.

2 In­terest paid is used, in the fol­low­ing or­der, for:

a.
cov­er­ing ad­min­is­trat­ive costs;
b.
cov­er­ing losses in­curred in grant­ing loans;
c.
fur­ther loans to farm­ers.

3 If the amounts re­paid and in­terest ac­cru­ing to the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies ex­ceed the amount re­quired, the FO­AG may:

a.
claim the Con­fed­er­a­tion’s share back and pass it on to an­oth­er can­ton; or
b.
make the Con­fed­er­a­tion’s share of un­used funds avail­able to the can­ton for in­vest­ment loans.122

122 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 86 Losses  

1 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall be li­able for losses ac­cru­ing from grant­ing loans that ex­ceed the lim­it in­dic­ated in Art­icle 81, in­clud­ing any leg­al costs, in­so­far as such losses are not covered through in­terest.

2 The Con­fed­er­a­tion and the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies are li­able in pro­por­tion to their share of the loan for any losses and leg­al costs ac­cru­ing from grant­ing loans that were ap­proved by the FO­AG un­der the terms of Art­icle 81, in­so­far as such losses are not covered through in­terest.

Chapter 2 Support for Re-Training123

123 Inserted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 86a  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may provide sup­port for self-em­ployed farm­ers or their part­ners for re-train­ing in a non-ag­ri­cul­tur­al trade or pro­fes­sion.

2 Such sup­port is con­di­tion­al on the ces­sa­tion of farm­ing. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late fur­ther re­quire­ments and ob­lig­a­tions.

3 Sup­port for re-train­ing shall be provided un­til the end of 2019 at the latest.124

124 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Title 5 Structural Improvements

Chapter 1 General Provisions

Art. 87 Basic principle  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall grant sub­sidies and in­vest­ment loans in or­der to:

a.
lower pro­duc­tion costs through ba­sic im­prove­ments to the farm;
b.
im­prove liv­ing and eco­nom­ic con­di­tions in rur­al areas, in par­tic­u­lar up­land and moun­tain areas;
c.
pro­tect farm­land as well as ag­ri­cul­tur­al build­ings and in­stall­a­tions from dilap­id­a­tion or de­struc­tion through nat­ur­al causes;
d.
help achieve eco­lo­gic­al aims as well as those con­cern­ing an­im­al wel­fare and spa­tial plan­ning;
e.
en­cour­age the ren­a­tur­isa­tion of small lakes and rivers to near-nat­ur­al con­di­tions.

2125

125 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 88 Requirements for comprehensive communal measures 126  

Com­pre­hens­ive com­mun­al meas­ures such as the re­or­gan­isa­tion of real es­tate and the over­all de­vel­op­ment of farm­land are sub­sid­ised if:

a.
they ba­sic­ally cov­er a nat­ur­ally or eco­nom­ic­ally defined area;
b.
they pro­mote eco­lo­gic­al bal­ance and con­nect­ing cor­ridors between bi­otopes.

126 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 89 Requirements for measures concerning individual farms  

1 Meas­ures con­cern­ing in­di­vidu­al farms are sub­sid­ised if the fol­low­ing re­quire­ments are met:

a.127
the farm must provide an ex­ist­ence in the longer term, if ne­ces­sary with a second in­come from out­side the ag­ri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, and re­quire an ap­pro­pri­ate and at least a nor­mal amount of la­bour;
b.
the farm must be run on an ef­fi­cient ra­tion­al basis;
c.128
the farm must be able to provide proof of eco­lo­gic­al per­form­ance un­der the terms of Art­icle 70a para­graph 2 after the in­vest­ment;
d.129
the fund­ing and ac­cept­ab­il­ity of the planned in­vest­ment in view of fu­ture eco­nom­ic con­di­tions must be guar­an­teed;
e.
the ap­plic­ant must con­trib­ute his or her own funds and loans as far as pos­sible;
f.
the ap­plic­ant must have a suit­able train­ing.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may set the la­bour lim­it lower than that stated in para­graph 1, let­ter a:

a.
in or­der to en­sure the farm is op­er­at­ive or to guar­an­tee an ad­equate pop­u­la­tion dens­ity;
b.
in the case of meas­ures aimed at di­ver­si­fy­ing activ­it­ies with­in the ag­ri­cul­tur­al or closely as­so­ci­ated sec­tors.130

127 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

128 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

129 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

130 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 89a Neutrality in relation to competition 131  

1 The pro­ject must be de­signed so as not to com­prom­ise neut­ral­ity in re­la­tion to com­pet­i­tion vis-à-visthe traders in the rel­ev­ant catch­ment area who are dir­ectly af­fected.

2 Be­fore the pro­ject is ap­proved, the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies de­cide wheth­er it is neut­ral in re­la­tion to com­pet­i­tion.

3 The dir­ectly af­fected traders in the rel­ev­ant catch­ment area and their pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­isa­tions and branch as­so­ci­ations may be con­sul­ted. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall stip­u­late the de­tails.

4 Traders who have not lodged an of­fi­cial ob­jec­tion re­gard­ing neut­ral­ity in re­la­tion to com­pet­i­tion with­in the time set out un­der can­ton­al le­gis­la­tion may not do so at a later date.

5 If neut­ral­ity in re­la­tion to com­pet­i­tion is con­firmed through a leg­al de­cision, ap­peals may no longer be lodged.

131 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 90 Protection of objects of national importance  

The fed­er­al in­vent­or­ies of ob­jects of na­tion­al im­port­ance are bind­ing in re­la­tion to struc­tur­al im­prove­ments sub­sid­ised by the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

Art. 91 Repayment in the case of a profit on a sale  

1 If the farm or a part there­of that is sub­sid­ised is sold at a profit, the vendor must re­pay in­vest­ment loans for in­di­vidu­al meas­ures as fol­lows:132

a.
all loans must be re­paid un­less the last pay­ment was made more than 20 years earli­er;
b.133
any out­stand­ing amounts must be re­paid.

2 The pay­ments must be made im­me­di­ately after the sale.

132 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

133 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 92 Monitoring  

Struc­tur­al im­prove­ments are mon­itored by the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies dur­ing work and after com­ple­tion.

Chapter 2 Subsidies

Section 1 Granting of Subsidies

Art. 93 Basic principle  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall grant sub­sidies with­in the lim­its of the ap­proved cred­its for:

a.
land im­prove­ment;
b.
ag­ri­cul­tur­al build­ings;
c.134
pro­jects in con­nec­tion with re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment and to pro­mote loc­al and re­gion­al products in which ag­ri­cul­ture plays a ma­jor role;
d.135
build­ings for small busi­nesses in moun­tain areas in­so­far as they are for pro­cessing and selling ag­ri­cul­tur­al products and thus add value; such busi­nesses must deal with at least the first stage of pro­cessing;
e.136
joint ini­ti­at­ives taken by farm­ers aimed at lower­ing pro­duc­tion costs.

2137

3 Fed­er­al sub­sidies are only gran­ted on con­di­tion that an ap­pro­pri­ate con­tri­bu­tion is made by the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies and its pub­lic law ter­rit­ori­al au­thor­it­ies.

4 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late re­quire­ments and ob­lig­a­tions re­lat­ing to the grant­ing of sub­sidies.

134 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

135 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

136 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

137 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 94 Terms  

1 Land im­prove­ment in­cludes:

a.
un­der­ground en­gin­eer­ing works and in­stall­a­tions in rur­al areas;
b.
the re­or­gan­isa­tion of land own­er­ship and ten­ancy con­di­tions.

2 Ag­ri­cul­tur­al build­ings in­clude:

a.
farm build­ings;
b.
alpine farms and barns;
c.138
com­mun­al build­ings in moun­tain areas that have been erec­ted by farm­ers for pre­par­ing, stor­ing and selling loc­al pro­duce.

138 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 95 Land improvements  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall sub­sid­ise up to 40 per cent of the cost of land im­prove­ments. Such costs in­clude ex­pendit­ure for meas­ures that are re­quired un­der the terms of oth­er fed­er­al le­gis­la­tion and are closely con­nec­ted to the sub­sid­ised work.

2 In the case of land im­prove­ments in moun­tain areas, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may raise the amount of the sub­sidy to a max­im­um of 50 per cent if such im­prove­ments:

a.
can­not be fun­ded through oth­er means; or
b.
com­prise com­pre­hens­ive com­mun­al works.

3 In the case of land im­prove­ments to re­pair es­pe­cially ser­i­ous dam­age due to ex­cep­tion­al nat­ur­al oc­cur­rences, the Con­fed­er­a­tion may grant a sup­ple­ment­ary sub­sidy of a max­im­um of 20 per cent if the re­quired work can­not be paid for even with an ap­pro­pri­ate con­tri­bu­tion from the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies, the loc­al au­thor­it­ies and pub­lic law funds.

4 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may grant lump-sum sub­sidies for the peri­od­ic re­pair of land im­prove­ment works.139

139 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 96 Agricultural buildings  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall grant lump-sum sub­sidies for new build­ings, con­ver­sions and im­prove­ments to ag­ri­cul­tur­al build­ings.

2 Sub­sidies for build­ings on in­di­vidu­al farms are gran­ted if the own­er of the prop­erty farms him­self or her­self.

3 Sub­sidies for farm build­ings and alpine farms and barns may also be gran­ted to ten­ant farm­ers if they can prove that they have the right to erect or own a build­ing on the land in ques­tion. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall stip­u­late re­quire­ments.

Art. 97 Project approval  

1 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies ap­prove pro­jects in­volving land im­prove­ments, ag­ri­cul­tur­al build­ings and re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment that re­ceive fed­er­al sub­sidies.140

2 They ask the FO­AG for its opin­ion in good time.

3 They make the pro­ject avail­able to the pub­lic and pub­lish it in the of­fi­cial can­ton­al gaz­ette is not re­quired for pro­jects that do not re­quire a con­ces­sion or plan­ning per­mis­sion un­der fed­er­al or can­ton­al le­gis­la­tion.141

4 They give or­gan­isa­tions that play a le­git­im­ate role in re­la­tion to the pro­tec­tion of nature and cul­tur­al her­it­age, the en­vir­on­ment or pub­lic hik­ing paths an op­por­tun­ity to lodge an ob­jec­tion con­cern­ing the pro­jects pub­lished in the of­fi­cial can­ton­al gaz­ette.142

5 If ne­ces­sary, the FO­AG con­sults oth­er fed­er­al agen­cies whose scope of activ­ity also cov­ers the pro­ject. It in­forms the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies of the re­quire­ments and ob­lig­a­tions en­tailed in the grant­ing of a sub­sidy for that pro­ject.

6 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­cides which pro­jects should not be passed on to the FO­AG for its opin­ion.

7 The FO­AG shall de­cide wheth­er or not to grant a sub­sidy only after the pro­ject has entered in­to ef­fect.143

140 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

141 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

142 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

143 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 97a Programme agreements 144  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may grant sub­sidies to the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies as part of pro­gramme agree­ments.

2 The fed­er­al agen­cies in­volved add their ob­lig­a­tions and con­di­tions to the pro­gramme agree­ments.

3 The pro­ced­ure for ap­prov­ing pro­jects to be sub­sidies by pay­ments through pro­gramme agree­ments is sub­ject to can­ton­al le­gis­la­tion.

144 In­ser­ted by No II 29 of the FA of 6 Oct. 2006 on the New Sys­tem of Fisc­al Equal­isa­tion and Di­vi­sion of Tasks between the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS 2007 5779; BBl 2005 6029).

Art. 98 Funding 145  

The Fed­er­al As­sembly shall by simple fed­er­al de­cree ap­prove a mul­tiple-year guar­an­tee cred­it in or­der to guar­an­tee the con­tri­bu­tions un­der Art­icle 93 para­graph 1.

145 Amended by No I 15 of the FA of 17 March 2017 on the Sta­bil­isa­tion Pro­gramme 2017–2019, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 5205; BBl 20164691).

Section 2 Connection with Other Works, Reapportionment of Land

Art. 99 Connection with other works  

1 The own­ers of land, works or in­stall­a­tions that are sub­sid­ised must ac­cept con­nec­tions with oth­er works if ap­pro­pri­ate in view of nat­ur­al and tech­nic­al cir­cum­stances.

2 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall de­cide on such con­nec­tions as well as ap­pro­pri­ate com­pens­a­tion for the use of ex­ist­ing works in­so­far as such com­pens­a­tion is jus­ti­fied.

Art. 100 Prescribed land reapportionment 146  

The can­ton­al gov­ern­ment may or­der land re­ap­por­tion­ment if the in­terests of ag­ri­cul­ture are af­fected by pub­lic works or land-use plan­ning.

146 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 101 Contractual land reapportionment  

1 Sev­er­al land-own­ers may agree in writ­ing on the re­ap­por­tion­ment of land. Such an agree­ment should in­dic­ate the prop­er­ties that are in­cluded in the re­ap­por­tion­ment and must provide for the set­tle­ment of any bur­dens on the prop­er­ties as well as the shar­ing of costs.

2 Can­ton­al ap­prov­al of the re­ap­por­tion­ment shall re­place the pub­lic deed con­tain­ing the agree­ment on the trans­fer of own­er­ship. The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies may not levy any taxes on the trans­fer of own­er­ship or sim­il­ar charges.

3 Art­icle 802 of the Swiss Civil Code147 ap­plies to the trans­fer of charges im­mov­able prop­erty and Art­icle 954 para­graph 2 of the Swiss Civil Code ap­plies to entries in the land re­gister.

4 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies are re­spons­ible for fur­ther pro­ced­ures.

Section 3 Security for Structural Improvements

Art. 102 Ban on change of use and parcellation  

1 Prop­er­ties, works and in­stall­a­tions, and ag­ri­cul­tur­al build­ings that have been im­proved through fed­er­al sub­sidies may not be used for any oth­er pur­pose dur­ing a 20-year peri­od after the last pay­ment of the fed­er­al sub­sidy; moreover, land that has been in­cluded in a re­ap­por­tion­ment may not be split up in­to smal­ler prop­er­ties.

2 Any per­son who breaches this ban on change of use or par­cel­la­tion must re­pay the sub­sidy re­ceived from the Con­fed­er­a­tion and re­pair any dam­age that has been done.

3 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies may al­low ex­cep­tions to the ban on change of use and par­cel­la­tion if good reas­on can be shown. They de­cide wheth­er the sub­sidies paid out should be re­paid in full or in part or wheth­er re­pay­ment should be waived.

Art. 103 Maintenance and use  

1 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies veri­fy wheth­er, after struc­tur­al im­prove­ments sub­sid­ised by the Con­fed­er­a­tion have been car­ried out:

a.
cul­tiv­ated land and un­cul­tiv­ated buf­fer strips and bi­otopes are be­ing used ap­pro­pri­ately;
b.
works, in­stall­a­tions and ag­ri­cul­tur­al build­ings are be­ing main­tained in good or­der.

2 In the case of gross neg­lect re­gard­ing farm­ing or main­ten­ance, as well as in­ap­pro­pri­ate care, the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies may be re­quired to de­mand re­pay­ment of the sub­sidies. The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies may take re­course against the re­cip­i­ents.

Art. 104 Entry in the land register  

1 Entries shall be made in the land re­gister con­cern­ing the ban on change of use and di­vi­sion, the man­dat­ory main­ten­ance and ap­pro­pri­ate use and the re­pay­ment ob­lig­a­tion.

2 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall in­form the land re­gistry ex of­fi­cio.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may al­low ex­cep­tions re­gard­ing the man­dat­ory entries in the land re­gister. It shall also reg­u­late on the de­le­tion of such entries.

Chapter 3 Investment Loans

Art. 105 Basic principle  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall provide funds for in­vest­ment loans to the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies for:

a.
meas­ures for in­di­vidu­al farms;
b.
com­mun­al meas­ures;
c.148
build­ings and in­stall­a­tions for small busi­nesses.

2 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall grant in­terest-free in­vest­ment loans in a rul­ing.

3 Loans must be re­paid with­in 20 years at the most. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the de­tails.

4 If the loan is se­cured by a charge on real es­tate, the or­der from the au­thor­it­ies grant­ing the loan may re­place the pub­lic deed con­tain­ing the pledge agree­ment.149

148 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

149 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 106 Investment loans for measures for individual farms  

1 Own­ers who run their own farms or will do so after in­vest­ment re­ceive in­vest­ment loans:150

a.
as one-time start-up sup­port for young farm­ers;
b.
for the con­struc­tion, con­ver­sion and im­prove­ment of res­id­en­tial and farm build­ings;
c.151
for meas­ures aimed at di­ver­si­fy­ing activ­it­ies in the ag­ri­cul­tur­al and closely as­so­ci­ated sec­tors in or­der to provide po­ten­tial sources of ad­di­tion­al in­come;
d.152
for meas­ures aimed at im­prov­ing the pro­duc­tion of spe­cial crops and ad­apt­ing them to the mar­ket, as well as for re­new­ing long-term crops.

2 Ten­ant farm­ers re­ceive in­vest­ment loans:

a.
as one-time start-up sup­port for young farm­ers;
b.
for the pur­chase of farms from third parties;
c.
for the con­struc­tion, con­ver­sion and im­prove­ment of res­id­en­tial and farm build­ings on con­di­tion that the right to erect or own a build­ing on the land in ques­tion can be demon­strated, or if the ten­ancy agree­ment is entered in the land re­gister for the fixed dur­a­tion of the loan ac­cord­ing to Art­icle 290 of the Swiss Code of Ob­lig­a­tions153 and the land own­er pledges the ob­ject of the ten­ancy agree­ment as se­cur­ity for the loan;
d.154
for meas­ures aimed at di­ver­si­fy­ing activ­it­ies in the ag­ri­cul­tur­al and closely as­so­ci­ated sec­tors in or­der to provide po­ten­tial sources of ad­di­tion­al in­come, in­so­far as the con­di­tions set out un­der let­ter c are met;
e.155
for meas­ures aimed at im­prov­ing the pro­duc­tion of spe­cial crops and ad­apt­ing them to the mar­ket as well as for the re­new­al of long-term crops in­so­far as the con­di­tions un­der let­ter c are met.

3 In­vest­ment loans are gran­ted as lump-sums.

4 Un­der the Fed­er­al Act of 4 Oc­to­ber 1974156 on the Pro­mo­tion of Hous­ing Con­struc­tion and Home Own­er­ship and the Fed­er­al Act of 20 March 1970157, on the Im­prove­ment of Liv­ing Con­di­tions in Alpine Re­gions, fin­an­cial as­sist­ance may also be sought, in ad­di­tion to in­vest­ment loans, for res­id­en­tial build­ings.

5 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late re­quire­ments and ob­lig­a­tions and al­low ex­cep­tions to the rule of own­er/farm­er and stip­u­late the grant­ing of lump-sum in­vest­ment loans.158

150 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

151 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

152 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337). Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

153 SR 220

154 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

155 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337). Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

156 SR 843

157 SR 844

158 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 107 Investment loans for communal measures  

1 In­vest­ment loans are gran­ted in par­tic­u­lar for:

a.
land im­prove­ments;
b.159
build­ings, in­stall­a­tions and ma­chinery erec­ted or pur­chased by farm­ers for joint self-help pro­jects in or­der to ra­tion­al­ise their op­er­a­tions, to fa­cil­it­ate the pre­par­a­tion, stor­age and mar­ket­ing of loc­al pro­duce or to pro­duce en­ergy from bio­mass;
c.160
set­ting up ag­ri­cul­tur­al self-help or­gan­isa­tions for mar­ket-ori­ent­ated pro­duc­tion and man­age­ment;
d.161
re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment pro­jects and pro­jects aimed at pro­mot­ing loc­al and re­gion­al products in which ag­ri­cul­ture plays a ma­jor role.

2 In the case of lar­ger pro­jects, sup­port may be gran­ted in the form of build­ing loans.162

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late re­quire­ments and ob­lig­a­tions.

159 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

160 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

161 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

162 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 107a Investment loans for small businesses 163  

1 In­vest­ment loans are gran­ted for build­ings and in­stall­a­tions for small busi­nesses in­so­far as they pro­cess and sell ag­ri­cul­tur­al products, thus in­creas­ing their ad­ded value; the busi­nesses must be in­volved at least in the first stage of pro­cessing.164

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late re­quire­ments and ob­lig­a­tions.

163 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

164 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 108 Approval  

1 If a single loan or a loan com­bined with the bal­ance of earli­er in­vest­ment loans and fin­an­cial sup­port ex­ceeds a cer­tain sum (lim­it), the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall sub­mit their de­cision to the FO­AG for ap­prov­al. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­cides on the lim­it.

1bis The FO­AG de­cides wheth­er to grant an in­vest­ment loan only when the pro­ject has come in­to ef­fect.165

2 The FO­AG shall in­form the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies with­in 30 days wheth­er it ap­proves the de­cision or not.166

3 If sup­port is gran­ted in the form of a build­ing loan as per Art­icle 107 para­graph 2, the bal­ance of earli­er loans is not taken in­to ac­count.

165 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

166 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 109 Calling in a loan  

1 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies may call in an in­vest­ment loan if they have good cause for do­ing so.

2 In cases of hard­ship, in­terest may be charged on the loan in­stead of call­ing it in.

Art. 110 Appropriation of repayments and interest  

1 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies shall use re­pay­ments of loans and in­terest for new in­vest­ment loans.

2 If the amounts paid back to the can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies and the in­terest ex­ceed their needs, the FO­AG may:

a.
call in the un­wanted amounts and pass them on to an­oth­er can­ton; or
b.
make them avail­able to the can­ton for fin­an­cial sup­port.
Art. 111 Losses  

The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies are li­able for losses in­curred in con­nec­tion with in­vest­ment loans, in­clud­ing any leg­al costs.

Art. 112 Administrative expenses  

The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies are li­able for ad­min­is­trat­ive ex­penses.

Title 6 Research and Advisory Services, Promotion of Plant and Animal Breeding and Genetic Resources 167

167 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Chapter 1 Basic Principle168

168 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 113 Basic principle  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion sup­ports ag­ri­cul­ture in its ef­forts to pro­duce in a ra­tion­al and sus­tain­able man­ner through the ac­quis­i­tion and pro­vi­sion of know­ledge.

2 An ap­pro­pri­ate pro­por­tion of fund­ing is used for types of pro­duc­tion that are par­tic­u­larly near-nat­ur­al and en­vir­on­ment­ally and an­im­al friendly.

Chapter 1a Research 169

169 Inserted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 114 Research stations 170  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may op­er­ate ag­ri­cul­tur­al re­search sta­tions.

2 The ag­ri­cul­tur­al re­search sta­tions are loc­ated in vari­ous parts of the coun­try.

3 They re­port to the FO­AG.

170 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 115 The tasks of the research stations 171  

1 The ag­ri­cul­tur­al re­search sta­tions have as­signed the fol­low­ing tasks in par­tic­u­lar:172

a.
to pro­cess sci­entif­ic find­ings and the tech­nic­al prin­ciples for ag­ri­cul­tur­al prac­tice, edu­ca­tion and ad­vis­ory ser­vices;
b.
to draw up sci­entif­ic prin­ciples for ag­ri­cul­tur­al de­cision-mak­ing;
c.
to de­vel­op, su­per­vise and as­sess ag­ri­cul­tur­al meas­ures;
d.
to draw up ba­sic prin­ciples for new strategies in ag­ri­cul­ture;
e.
to draw up ba­sic prin­ciples for en­vir­on­ment­ally and an­im­al-friendly types of pro­duc­tion;
f.
to carry out im­ple­ment­a­tion du­ties.

2173

171 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

172 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

173 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337). Re­pealed in An­nex No 5 of the FA of 18 June 2010, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 5003; BBl 20097207).

Art. 116 Service agreements, research mandates and financial assistance 174  

1 The FO­AG may en­trust in­sti­tutes be­long­ing to fed­er­al and can­ton­al uni­versit­ies or oth­er in­sti­tutes with re­search man­dates. It may sign peri­od­ic ser­vice agree­ments with pub­lic or private or­gan­isa­tions.175

2 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may provide fin­an­cial sup­port for ex­per­i­ments and in­vest­ig­a­tions car­ried out by or­gan­isa­tions.

174 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

175 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 117 The Agricultural Research Committee  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall ap­point the Ag­ri­cul­tur­al Re­search Stand­ing Com­mit­tee, com­pris­ing a max­im­um of 15 mem­bers. In­ter­ested parties, in par­tic­u­lar pro­du­cers, con­sumers and sci­ent­ists, must be pro­por­tion­ally rep­res­en­ted on the Re­search Com­mit­tee.176

2 The Re­search Com­mit­tee shall provide the FO­AG with re­com­mend­a­tions on ag­ri­cul­tur­al re­search, in par­tic­u­lar for its long-term plan­ning.

176 Amended by No I 6.5of the Or­din­ance of 9 Nov. 2011 (Re­view of the ex­tra-par­lia­ment­ary com­mis­sions), in force since 1 Jan. 2012 (AS 2011 5227).

Chapter 2 …

Art. 118–135177  

177 Re­pealed in An­nex No II 5 of the FA of 13 Dec. 2002 on Vo­ca­tion­al and Pro­fes­sion­al Edu­ca­tion and Train­ing, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4557; BBl 2000 5686).

Chapter 2a Advisory Services178

178 Previously Section 4 of Chap. 2. Amended by Annex No II 5 of the FA of 13 Dec. 2002 on Vocational and Professional Education and Training, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4557; BBl 2000 5686).

Art. 136 Tasks and organisation 179  

1 Ad­vis­ory ser­vices are in­ten­ded for people em­ployed in ag­ri­cul­ture, house­hold man­age­ment in ag­ri­cul­ture, ag­ri­cul­tur­al or­gan­isa­tions or in the de­vel­op­ment of rur­al areas, as well as in en­sur­ing and pro­mot­ing the qual­ity of ag­ri­cul­tur­al products. Such people are sup­por­ted in their pro­fes­sion­al work and in re­la­tion to their fur­ther pro­fes­sion­al train­ing.

2 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies provide ad­vis­ory ser­vices at a can­ton­al level.

3 The Con­fed­er­a­tion provides fin­an­cial as­sist­ance with­in the lim­its of the ap­proved cred­its for ad­vis­ory ser­vices to supra-re­gion­al or na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions or in­sti­tu­tions that are act­ive in spe­cial areas, as well as to na­tion­al ad­vis­ory of­fices.

3bis The Con­fed­er­a­tion may sup­port pre­lim­in­ary in­vest­ig­a­tions for com­mun­al pro­ject ini­ti­at­ives.180

4 Sup­port is provided for ad­vis­ory activ­it­ies aimed at pro­mot­ing the ex­change of know­ledge, in­form­a­tion and ex­per­i­ence between re­search­ers and those work­ing in the field, between ag­ri­cul­tur­al busi­nesses and those men­tioned in para­graph 1. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall draw up de­tails con­cern­ing areas of activ­ity and types of ser­vices.

5 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the re­quire­ments for the or­gan­isa­tions, in­sti­tu­tions and ad­vis­ory of­fices and the ad­visors em­ployed by them.

179 Amended by No II 8 of the FA of 6 Oct. 2006 on the New Sys­tem of Fisc­al Equal­isa­tion and Di­vi­sion of Tasks between the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS 2007 5779; BBl2005 6029).

180 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007, in force since 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337).

Art. 137 and 138181  

181 Re­pealed by No II 29 of the FA of 6 Oct. 2006 on the New Sys­tem of Fisc­al Equal­isa­tion and Di­vi­sion of Tasks between the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 5779; BBl 2005 6029).

Art. 139182  

182 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Chapter 3 Horticulture, Livestock Breeding and Genetic Resources 183

183 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Section 1 Horticulture

Art. 140  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may pro­mote the breed­ing of com­mer­cial plants which:

a.
are of high eco­lo­gic­al value;
b.
are of high qual­ity; or
c.
have been ad­ap­ted to the con­di­tions pre­vail­ing in the vari­ous parts of the coun­try.

2 It may provide sub­sidies for private plant breed­ers and spe­cial­ised or­gan­isa­tions that provide ser­vices for the gen­er­al good, namely for:

a.
breed­ing, main­tain­ing the pur­ity of and im­prov­ing vari­et­ies;
b.
ex­per­i­ment­al cul­tiv­a­tion;
c.184

3 It may sub­sid­ise the pro­duc­tion of seeds and seed­lings.

184 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Section 2 Livestock Breeding

Art. 141 Promotion of livestock breeding  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may pro­mote the breed­ing of live­stock which:

a.
is ad­ap­ted to the nat­ur­al con­di­tions pre­vail­ing;
b.185
is healthy, pro­duct­ive and res­ist­ant; and
c.
leads to the mar­ket-ori­ent­ated and low-cost pro­duc­tion of high-qual­ity meat products.

2 The pro­mo­tion of live­stock breed­ing should en­sure high-qual­ity in­de­pend­ent an­im­al hus­bandry.

185 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 142 Subsidies  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may provide sub­sidies to re­cog­nised or­gan­isa­tions, in par­tic­u­lar for:

a.
keep­ing stud-books, test­ing per­form­ance and as­sess­ing breed­ing value;
b.
pro­grammes aimed at pro­mot­ing per­form­ance and qual­ity as well as at im­prov­ing the qual­ity and health of live­stock;
c.186

2 No sub­sidies are paid for breed­ing trans­gen­ic an­im­als.

186 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 143 Requirements  

Sub­sidies are gran­ted if:

a.187
b.
the breed­ers ad­opt reas­on­able self-help meas­ures and help to fund pro­mo­tion­al activ­it­ies; and
c.
the meas­ures pro­moted com­ply with in­ter­na­tion­al norms.

187 Re­pealed by No II 29 of the FA of 6 Oct. 2006 on the New Sys­tem of Fisc­al Equal­isa­tion and Di­vi­sion of Tasks between the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 5779; BBl 2005 6029).

Art. 144 Recognition of organisations  

1 The FO­AG re­cog­nises the or­gan­isa­tions. …188

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the re­quire­ments.

188 Second sen­tence re­pealed by No II 29 of the FA of 6 Oct. 2006 on the New Sys­tem of Fisc­al Equal­isa­tion and Di­vi­sion of Tasks between the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the Can­tons, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2008 (AS2007 5779; BBl 2005 6029).

Art. 145189  

189 Re­pealed by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 146 Import requirements relating to livestock breeding and genealogy  

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may in­tro­duce re­quire­ments re­lat­ing to breed­ing and gene­a­logy for the im­port­ing of an­im­als for breed­ing, sperm, ova and em­bry­os.

Art. 146a Genetically modified livestock 190  

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may is­sue reg­u­la­tions con­cern­ing the breed­ing, im­port­ing or cir­cu­la­tion of ge­net­ic­ally mod­i­fied live­stock.

190 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 8 of the Gene Tech­no­logy Act of 21 March 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4803; BBl 2000 2391).

Art. 147 Stud 191  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall main­tain a na­tion­al stud farm for the pur­poses of sup­port­ing horse-breed­ing.192

2 The FO­AG is re­spons­ible for the stud farm.

3193

191 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

192 Amended by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

193 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 22 June 2007 (AS2007 6095; BBl 2006 6337). Re­pealed by An­nex No 5 of the FA of 18 June 2010, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2011 (AS 2010 5003; BBl 20097207).

Section 3 Genetic Resources for Agriculture and Food Production194

194 Inserted by No I of the FA of 22 March 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 34633863; BBl 2012 2075).

Art. 147a Maintenance and sustainable use of genetic resources  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may en­cour­age the main­ten­ance and the sus­tain­able use of ge­net­ic re­sources. It may keep ge­net­ic banks and main­ten­ance re­gisters or may man­date an­oth­er agency to do so and sub­sid­ise meas­ures such as in situ main­ten­ance in par­tic­u­lar.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late re­quire­ments re­gard­ing ge­net­ic banks, main­ten­ance re­gisters, meas­ures and en­ti­tle­ment to sub­sidies. It shall draw up cri­ter­ia for the al­loc­a­tion of sub­sidies.

Art. 147b Access to genetic resources and allocation of advantages  

In­so­far as in­ter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments ex­ist, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late ac­cess to ge­net­ic re­sources and the al­loc­a­tion of ad­vant­ages arising from the use of such re­sources.

Title 7 Plant Protection and Aids to Production 195

195 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Chapter 1 Implementing Provisions 196

196 Inserted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 148  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall draw up reg­u­la­tions for pre­vent­ing dam­age caused by harm­ful or­gan­isms as well as by the cir­cu­la­tion of in­ap­pro­pri­ate aids to pro­duc­tion.

2 In do­ing so it shall take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the re­quire­ments of product safety.197

197 In­ser­ted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Chapter 2 Preventive Measures198

198 Inserted by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 148a  

1 If the sci­entif­ic in­form­a­tion is in­suf­fi­cient to fully as­sess the risks per­tain­ing to aids to pro­duc­tion or plant ma­ter­i­al that may carry par­tic­u­larly dan­ger­ous harm­ful or­gan­isms, pre­vent­ive meas­ures may be taken if:

a.
it is sus­pec­ted that the aids to pro­duc­tion or plant ma­ter­i­al may have un­desir­able side-ef­fects on the health of hu­mans, an­im­als, plants or the en­vir­on­ment; and
b.
it is highly likely that such side-ef­fects will oc­cur or that the con­sequences there­of could be far-reach­ing.

2 Pre­vent­ive meas­ures must be re-ex­amined and mod­i­fied with­in an ap­pro­pri­ate time-frame in ac­cord­ance with the latest sci­entif­ic find­ings.

3 With re­gard to pre­vent­ive meas­ures, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
re­strict, is­sue con­di­tions for or ban the im­port­ing, cir­cu­la­tion and use of aids to pro­duc­tion;
b.
re­strict, is­sue con­di­tions for or ban the im­port­ing and cir­cu­la­tion of plant ma­ter­i­al and goods that may carry par­tic­u­larly dan­ger­ous harm­ful or­gan­isms.

Chapter 3 Plant Protection199

199 Originally Chap. 1.

Section 1 Basic Principles

Art. 149 Confederation  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall pro­mote ap­pro­pri­ate plant pro­tec­tion prac­tice to pro­tect crops from harm­ful or­gan­isms.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall draw up reg­u­la­tions for the pro­tec­tion of crops and plant ma­ter­i­al (plants, parts of plants and plant products) from par­tic­u­larly dan­ger­ous harm­ful or­gan­isms.

Art. 150 Cantons  

The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies run a plant pro­tec­tion ser­vice which in par­tic­u­lar guar­an­tees that meas­ures for com­bat­ing harm­ful or­gan­isms are cor­rectly im­ple­men­ted with­in the coun­try.

Art. 151 Principles of plant protection  

1 Any per­son who pro­duces, im­ports or cir­cu­lates plant ma­ter­i­al must re­spect the prin­ciples of plant pro­tec­tion.

2 He or she is ob­liged in par­tic­u­lar to in­form the au­thor­it­ies of any es­pe­cially dan­ger­ous harm­ful or­gan­isms.

Section 2 Special Measures

Art. 152 Import, export, production and circulation  

1 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall draw up reg­u­la­tions on the im­port and cir­cu­la­tion of:

a.
par­tic­u­larly dan­ger­ous harm­ful or­gan­isms;
b.
plant ma­ter­i­al and goods that may carry par­tic­u­larly dan­ger­ous harm­ful or­gan­isms.

2 In par­tic­u­lar it may:

a.
stip­u­late that a per­mit is re­quired for bring­ing cer­tain plant ma­ter­i­al in­to cir­cu­la­tion;
b.
is­sue reg­u­la­tions con­cern­ing the re­gis­tra­tion and mon­it­or­ing of busi­nesses that pro­duce or cir­cu­late such plant ma­ter­i­al;
c.
ob­lige such busi­nesses to keep re­cords con­cern­ing the plant ma­ter­i­al in ques­tion;
d.
for­bid the im­port and cir­cu­la­tion of plant ma­ter­i­al that car­ries or may carry par­tic­u­larly dan­ger­ous harm­ful or­gan­isms;
e.
for­bid the cul­tiv­a­tion of highly sus­cept­ible host plants.

3 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall en­sure that plant ma­ter­i­al in­ten­ded for ex­port meets in­ter­na­tion­al re­quire­ments.

Art. 153 Preventive measures  

In or­der to pre­vent the im­port and spread of par­tic­u­larly dan­ger­ous harm­ful or­gan­isms, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
or­der the phytosan­it­ary situ­ation to be mon­itored;
b.
stip­u­late that plant ma­ter­i­al and ob­jects and land that are sus­pec­ted of be­ing in­fec­ted be isol­ated as long as an in­fec­tion can­not be ruled out;
c.
or­der the treat­ment, dis­in­fec­tion or de­struc­tion of crops, plant ma­ter­i­al, aids to pro­duc­tion and ob­jects which are or could be af­fected by par­tic­u­larly dan­ger­ous harm­ful or­gan­isms.

Section 3 Cost of Combating Harmful Organisms

Art. 154 Liability of the cantons  

1 The can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies are li­able for the cost of meas­ures del­eg­ated to them.

2 Any per­son who pro­duces, im­ports or cir­cu­lates plant ma­ter­i­al and wil­fully or neg­li­gently breaches the du­ties set out in Art­icle 151 may be held li­able for the en­su­ing costs.

Art. 155 Liability of the Confederation  

Nor­mally, the Con­fed­er­a­tion pays for 50 per cent, and in ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances up to 75 per cent, of the re­cog­nised costs in­curred by the can­tons for im­ple­ment­ing pre­vent­ive meas­ures un­der the terms of Art­icle 153.

Art. 156 Compensation for damage  

1 If the value of ob­jects is re­duced or the ob­jects are totally des­troyed as a res­ult of of­fi­cial com­bat meas­ures or through dis­in­fec­tion or sim­il­ar pro­ced­ures, the own­er may re­ceive fair com­pens­a­tion.

2 The defin­it­ive amount of the com­pens­a­tion shall be set through the simplest pro­ced­ure pos­sible, the claimant not be­ing li­able for any costs:

a.
by the FO­AG in the case of meas­ures ordered by the FO­AG along the Swiss bor­der or with­in the coun­try;
b.
by the rel­ev­ant can­ton­al ad­min­is­tra­tion in the case of oth­er meas­ures with­in the coun­try.200

3 The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall re­pay the can­tons at least one third of the ex­penses in­curred through such com­pens­a­tion.

200 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

Art. 157 Subsidies 201  

1 The Con­fed­er­a­tion may del­eg­ate mon­it­or­ing pro­ced­ures to private or­gan­isa­tions.

2 The private or­gan­isa­tions shall re­ceive re­mu­ner­a­tion for car­ry­ing out such man­dates.

201 Amended by No I of the FA of 20 June 2003, in force since 1 Jan. 2004 (AS 2003 4217; BBl 2002 47217234).

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