In a referendum held on Sunday June 13, 2021, Swiss voters have rejected two initiatives that aimed to ban synthetic pesticides.
In Switzerland’s direct democracy system, any initiative that gathers over 100,000 signatures can be subject to a national vote.
The rejected initiatives had the following titles:
- “For a Switzerland free from synthetic pesticides”
- “For clean drinking water and healthy food”
The Swiss government, farmers, and manufacturers have been warning that banning pesticides would destabilize national food sovereignty.
From the other side, environmentalists and the political left have strongly supported the initiatives. They have raised alarming concerns about a statistics showing that over one million Swiss drink contaminated water.