BERN - Agricultural insurer Hagel Schweiz put summer crop damage at CHF 59.2 million on Thursday, almost three times last summer's bill. It expects about 5,800 claims this year. Drought accounts for 45 percent of them and hail for 48 percent. Potatoes, maize, sugar beet and sunflowers were hit hardest. The insurer said the payouts point to a clearly negative operating result.
April to August was the driest and hottest such stretch since records began in 1901, Hagel Schweiz said. That matches the water story that started when the government raised the drought alert in June and was still unresolved when July rains failed to refill reservoirs. The insurer's sentence was blunt: this year's drought shows how far climate change has already reached into Swiss farming.
Insured losses and the wider farm bill
The CHF 59.2 million figure is an insurance number, not the whole harvest. Earlier this month the Swiss Farmers' Union estimated broader agricultural losses near CHF 522 million, in the same range as the 2003 heat year. It put grain maize losses near half, forage maize near 30 percent, and potatoes and sugar beet near 20 percent. Swisspatat has put the 2026 potato crop at 333,000 tonnes, the lowest on record and almost a fifth below the recent five-year average, which implies a large import need.
Those are different ledgers. One pays hail and drought policies. The other tries to count lost output and extra irrigation. Both say the same summer did the damage. Milk buyers have already agreed an indicative four centimes a litre, with a further request in to Bern for drought support.
A ballot that will not refund the harvest
Sunday's food security initiative asks voters for a stronger domestic-production mandate. It will not change this year's claims. A no, which the polls suggest, would still leave parliament with a harvest file: imports, price talks, and whether drought insurance is still priced for a 1901 climate. The campaign split is in our 12 September report.