Young farmers movement

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The Young Peasant Movement or Swiss Peasant Homeland Movement was a peasant organization and political party in Switzerland. The initial abstinence movement became more and more one with a cultural content. In view of the great economic crisis of the 1930s, she was also active in party politics and, together with trade unions, was primarily committed to an anti-cyclical economic policy. After the Second World War , the farmers' homeland movement became a pioneer for organic agriculture in Switzerland, which also exerted a great influence on Germany and Austria.

Abstinence association and mail order library

Under the impression of excessive alcohol consumption among the rural population, which led numerous families to the brink of ruin, the association of abstinent farmers was founded in Grosshöchstetten in 1923 . The farmer's son, secondary school teacher and doctorate in botanist Hans Müller tried to implement his understanding of the Christian faith as an “invitation to action” by promoting the production of sweet cider. Gradually he developed a wide range of cultural activities for the rural population. Dozens of local educational groups emerged, especially in the reformed German-speaking part of Switzerland. A mailing library with around 3,000 volumes was an important aid for this. In 1932, a private farmer's school and an education center for farmers were established on the Möschberg above Grosshöchstetten in the canton of Bern.

Party political engagement

In 1929 Hans Müller was elected to the National Council as a member of the Farmers, Trade and Citizens' Party (BGB) .

In the wake of the economic crisis, Hans Müller became more and more committed to a change of course in economic policy (against the deflationary policy supported by the BGB ). He looked for allies in the labor and trade union movement, fought the government's wage cut policy and launched the so-called crisis initiative in 1934 together with leading representatives from the trade unions. This led to the break with the BGB. From then on, the young farmers formed their own parliamentary groups in the Grand Council of the Canton of Bern and in the parliaments of several other cantons as well as in the federal parliament. They committed themselves to a rural land law and a modern old age insurance.

In 1934, the young farmers launched the crisis initiative together with the trade unions and employee associations, but fought against the initiative for a total revision of the federal constitution . The party also aimed to combat rural exodus. In 1935, Hans Müller was expelled from the BGB parliamentary group. In 1937 the party split into a more frontist and a more union wing. The young farmers were also involved in the guideline movement . The inclusion of the Social Democrats in the Federal Council's financial policy isolated the young farmers who remained in the opposition role.

In 1938 the party achieved 13.8 percent of the electorate in the elections for the canton of Bern. Both wings reunited, but were politically isolated. In 1940 the party slipped more and more to the right. Hans Müller was proclaimed leader. From 1941 the party demanded that Switzerland should adapt to Germany and fit into the new order in Europe.

In 1941 the Democratic Party split off from the Swiss young farmers in the canton of Graubünden .

In 1942 the party reached 11.8% of the voters in the canton of Bern.

In 1943 the party lost massive votes in the National Council elections. Müller's authoritarian leadership style, which was also highly controversial internally, led to divisions. In 1946 the party dissolved in the cantons of Bern, Thurgau and Zurich. In 1947 the party lost its last seat in the canton of St. Gallen.

Organic farming and recycling cooperative

After their temporary slide to the right, the young farmers withdrew from politics in 1946. With the establishment of the cultivation and processing cooperative AVG (today Bio-Gemüse AV-AG in Galmiz), the focus of the movement shifted to organic farming. The Möschberg became a place for knowledge transfer and the exchange of experiences for hundreds of farming families for the entire German-speaking area and far beyond. Hans Müller's wife Maria Müller and the German doctor Hans Peter Rusch played a central role in this. Even after his death, students of Hans Müller played a key role in shaping Swiss organic farming and, indirectly, international farming, until the topical leadership was taken over by the FiBL Research Institute for Organic Agriculture, founded in 1974, and the Bio Suisse umbrella association, founded in 1981.

Bioforum Switzerland and Hotel Möschberg

The new association Bioforum Switzerland later emerged from the Swiss farmers' home movement. This continues to advocate the core concerns of organic farming, but also for a holistic ecological and sustainable approach in business and politics. The magazine Kultur und Politik is your mouthpiece. The house on the Möschberg is today a seminar and culture hotel with organic kitchen and accommodates guests from a wide variety of sections of the population.

See also

literature

  • Möschberg archive (see the “Sources on Agricultural History” database on agrararchiv.ch ).
  • Werner Baumann, Peter Moser: Farmers in the industrial state. Agricultural policy conceptions and peasant movements in Switzerland 1918–1968 . Orell Füssli, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-280-02812-4 .
  • Peter Moser: The status of the farmers. Rural politics, economy and culture yesterday and today . Huber, Frauenfeld 1994, ISBN 3-7193-1096-5 .
  • René Riesen: The Swiss Farmer's Homeland Movement - the development from the beginning until 1947 under the leadership of Hans Müller, Möschberg / Grosshöchstetten . Francke Verlag, Bern 1972 ( Helvetia Politica Series B 7, also: Univ. Bern, Diss., 1971).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bioforum Switzerland
  2. ↑ Bioforum Switzerland - Culture and Politics ( Memento from May 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ seminar culture hotel moeschberg