Religion, spirituality and faith of Swiss farmers in relation to biodiversity-linked farming behaviour

Summary

Biodiversity promotion schemes often have limited impact because they fail to connect with farmers’ personal valuesand beliefs. The effectiveness of such schemes could be enhanced by understanding how farmers’ value systems, includ-ing religio-spiritual beliefs, influence their biodiversity-promoting decisions. The aim of this contribution is to explorerelationships between farmers’ religio-spirituality and faith and biodiversity-supporting farming decisions, which wasaddressed with 22 semi-structured interviews with Swiss farmers. Through thematic analysis, values were identified acrosstwo main categories: values expressively linked to religio-spirituality and those not expressively linked to religio-spiritu-ality related to biodiversity. This was done to demonstrate the visibility of the religio-spiritually connected values to thevalues operated in the context of farming behaviour. The findings revealed that religio-spiritual values operated withinthe context of biodiversity-linked farming behaviour were remaining truthful to design, mercy towards and the rights ofcreatures, and responsibility and care. These values were operational not only in the personal dimension of the farmers,regardless of their degree of religiosity, but also in the social and business dimensions of the farm enterprise in the contextof biodiversity. Thus, religion and spirituality shape farmers’ worldviews, influencing agricultural practices through bothinternalized non-instrumental values and deliberate instrumental logic.