Comprehension

URBANISING THE HIGH ALPS

The building crane, which has become the most striking feature of the urban landscape in Switzerland, is beginning to alter the mountain landscape as well. Districts of the Swiss Alps, which up to now have consisted of only a few disconnected small communities content with selling cheese and milk, perhaps a little lumber and seed potatoes, are today becoming parts of planned, developing regions. The new highway, the new skylift, the new multi-nationally-owned hotel will diversify the economy and raise the standard of living in the mountain areas, or so many Swiss regional planners and government officials hope.

The mountainous area of Switzerland, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of the total area of the country and only 12% of the total population, has always been the problem area. According to the last census in 1970, 750,000 people lived in the Swiss mountains. Compared with the rest of the country, incomes are lower, services are fewer, employment opportunities are more limited and populations are decreasing. In fact, in only one respect do mountain districts come out ahead. They have more farmers, which many people do not consider to be an advantage. 17% of the Swiss mountain population works in primary occupations, in contrast to only 8% of the total population of the country.
The mountain farmers are a special breed of men. They work at least twelve hours a day in topographical and weather conditions which kill most crops and which only a few animals will tolerate. About half of them work at some other jobs as well, leaving their wives and children to do the bulk of the farm work. In the Rhone Valley in the canton of Valais in south-western Switzerland nearly four-fifths of the farmers commute daily from their mountain farms to the large factories in the valley. In other parts of Switzerland this pattern of life is not as common, but almost everywhere non-farm wintertime employment is the rule.
With all the difficulties inherent in working in the Swiss mountains, why should anyone resist any extension of the mountain economy? The answer, as Andress Werthemann, editor of the Swiss mountain agriculture magazine Alpwirtschafiliche Monatsblatter states, is that "when tourism becomes too massive, farming disappears". And basically there are three reasons why Switzerland needs its mountain farmers: they contribute to the food supply, they preserve the landscape, and they represent the Switzerland of nostalgia and holiday dreams.
In a country where nearly one-quarter of the land is unproductive and which produces only 45 per cent of its own food requirements, all types of agricultural enterprises must be encouraged. Mountain farms, and mountain cattle, including cows, represent one-third of the total Swiss cattle population. In addition, more than one half the sheep, most of the goats and one-fifth of the pigs of Switzerland live in the mountain areas.
The neat Swiss landscape of well-tended pastures and woodlands could not be maintained without mountain farmers. Their animals fertilize the pastures, and the farmers care for the woods, buildings and land. Beyond the physical landscape, however, lies the whole picture of the Swiss mountains, of which farmers are very much a part: the alpine horn, the cow bells, the decorated milk pails, the shepherds' costumes, the parade of the animals up and down the mountains.
But in the real world, and especially in highly industrialized Switzerland where mountain farmers are aware of the "benefits" of city living, is it possible to maintain mountain agriculture and still solve the problems of mountain communities? The Swiss government has come to the conclusion that other kinds of employment in addition to farming must be emphasized. Yet whether it is possible to create other jobs that will not completely destroy agriculture is unknown.