The author of the initiative had criticised the fact that food prices were rising for consumers while farmers were making the same amount of money as before, or even less.
Keystone / Gaetan Bally
The Swiss Senate on Thursday approved a parliamentary initiative to monitor precisely who makes what margin in the food value chain and where various costs are incurred. The House of Representatives had previously also voted in favour of such an initiative.
The Senate reached its decision by 21 votes to 18, with no abstentions. The Senate committee that had studied the issue had requested that the initiative be rejected. However, the Senate voted to approve a motion by Maya Graf of the Green Party. The House economic affairs committee can now draw up a bill.
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The initiative was submitted by former Green Party parliamentarian Isabelle Pasquier-Eichenberger back in 2022. She had criticised the fact that food prices were rising for consumers. At the same time, however, the amount that farmers received for their products had remained the same or even fallen in recent decades. This was unsatisfactory for both sides.
Pasquier-Eichenberger therefore called for the market monitoring already provided for in the Agriculture Act to be defined more precisely. While the House committee and later the House of Representatives itself backed the demand, the Senate committee for economic affairs refused to give its approval.
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Committee spokesperson Peter Hegglin of The Centre party argued that the initiative would not only entail an enormous amount of work, but it would also force companies to disclose business secrets under certain circumstances. It would also increase the workload for the federal administration, he said.
Translated from German with DeepL/gw
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