Federal Act
on Agriculture
(Agriculture Act, AgricA)

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;

b^bis.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