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The demand for rapeseed oil has increased in Switzerland in recent years. But despite the larger acreage, the harvest has declined.
The harvest of the bright yellow rapeseed fields is due in the next few days, but the fields have suffered, as Rahel Emmenegger from the Swiss Grain Producers Association explains. This year the weather was special again, “it was cold and rather wet for a particularly long time when the rapeseed was in bloom. This meant that flowering sometimes took longer,” says Emmenegger.
A relatively large number of pesticides have been banned in recent years and it is no longer easy to control the pests.
The delay would have made things easy for the pests. Rapeseed fields are susceptible to pests anyway and pesticides should only be used to a limited extent, says David Brugger, head of crop production at the Swiss Farmers’ Association. Infestation occurs “because a relatively large number of pesticides have been banned in recent years and it is simply no longer possible to control the pests well,” says Brugger.
searched for alternatives
Switzerland and the EU introduced the pesticide ban to protect wild bees. Statistics show that Swiss farmers have grown more rapeseed in terms of area in recent years. Nevertheless, according to David Brugger, the harvest has tended to decline. At the same time, the demand for rapeseed oil continues to rise. “We are finding that this difference between demand and the amount of rapeseed actually produced is becoming ever wider.”
Brugger does not believe that the farmers will increase their harvest in the future because a limit has been reached and it is too difficult to grow rapeseed without pesticides. After the rapeseed trend, oil producers have to start looking for alternatives again.