Agrarian Project: Commoning Land and Labour around Zurich

Abstract

Agricultural land is all around. Nearly half of the surface of the Canton of Zurich is dedicated to agriculture, yet the traditional Swiss pastoral has all but disappeared. Non-agricultural economies and ways of life have spread across the former rural areas. Much of the landscape has been homogenised through large scale commercial farming based on industrial monocultures supported by seasonal labour. Right next to agricultural fields—and seemingly a world apart—are areas of housing and working marked by rising rents, exorbitant prices of land and real-estate, a pressure on urban fabric to grow and on people to commute further.