Switzerland Federal Biodiversity Contributions (Agri-Environment PES)

Switzerland's Federal Biodiversity Contributions (Biodiversitatsbeitrage) are statutory payments under the Direct Payments Ordinance (DZV), administered by the Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG/BLW). First introduced in 1993 and substantially reformed in 2014, they are among Europe's longest-running agri-environment payment programmes.

The scheme aims to maintain and connect Biodiversity Promotion Areas (BPAs) - extensively managed meadows, traditional orchards, wetlands, hedgerows and wildflower strips - across Swiss farmland.

The scheme operates at two tiers: Quality contributions (QI) pay for creating and maintaining 16 defined BPA types, while Connectivity contributions (QII) reward farmers whose BPAs are ecologically linked within a regional network. Farms must designate at least 7% of their agricultural area as BPAs to receive any direct payments at all, making biodiversity conservation a mandatory cross-compliance condition across Switzerland's roughly 47,000 farms. Quality and connectivity bonuses reach CHF 300-2,300 per hectare per year depending on habitat type and region.

As of 2017, over 184,000 hectares of agricultural land were enrolled as BPAs - approximately 17% of Switzerland's total agricultural area. Annual public expenditure on green direct payments exceeded CHF 650 million, equivalent to roughly €405 per hectare of agricultural land. Agroscope, the national agricultural research centre, has documented measurable improvements in plant species richness and breeding bird populations in BPAs compared with intensively managed farmland.

The mandatory 7% cross-compliance threshold drives near-universal participation across Swiss farms, and per-hectare investment is among the highest for biodiversity payments worldwide.