Farmers Watch Winter Direct Payments as Feed Costs Stay High

BERN - Livestock farms in the midlands and the Pre-Alps said January cashflow was tight even though direct payments arrived on the usual date. Feed prices have not fallen as fast as energy headlines. Milk buyers kept their January schedules.

The Swiss Farmers' Union used the last day of the month to remind parliament that spring session farm debates are not theoretical. Hill farms in Fribourg and Lucerne named diesel and fertilizer before they named Brussels.

A year of ballots and barns

Environmental politics already had a February date. Rural voters will treat that text as a cost question, not a seminar. See our later vote report.