Weed control in Swiss organic vegetable farming

Summary

The Swiss DESIRA Living Lab (LL) focuses on how digitalisation and the use of robots and other digital tools can support Swiss organic vegetable farming, with a particular focus on weed management. Weed control in organic vegetable farming encounter several challenges like the decreasing availability of manual workers. The future remains uncertain as to how weed control could be shaped by digitalisation.
To address this, the following scenario question was elaborated and discussed with stakeholders during workshops: How will weeds be managed in Swiss organic vegetable farming in the increasingly digitalised age of 2031?
As a result of two main scenarios developed with stakeholders, a positive and a negative one, five central policy options were elaborated: (1) Communicating about the advantages of digitalisation; (2) developing an environment that allows for more open innovation; (3) integrating digital specialists in teaching, consulting and agricultural journalism; (4) improving the economic conditions of digitalisation; and (5) encouraging a further diversification of rotations and agricultural activities.