Matthew Wadley - 2025 Switzerland Study Tour

After 36 hours of travelling by car, plane and train, including a 10-hour layover I made it to my host family’s farm in Emmen, Switzerland on June 14th 2025.  Being here I learnt about how they run their organic dairy farm; from pulling weeds in the maize field to the pasture paddocks, topping paddocks with the mower on the tractor, helping milk the cows every morning and even servicing the bobcat skid steer for them. My hosts Sammie & Silvia welcomed me into their house and did everything possible to make me feel at home. Sammie has taken me hiking up Mt Grosser Mythen which is 1900m high. We took a cable car up most of the way and then walked the last 3km up the side of a steep cliff face.

 

I also got the chance to go river rafting with a local young farmers group, we spent around 3 hours floating down the river which flows about twice the speed of our rivers in Tasmania, following that I had my welcoming weekend where I met all the other exchangees from around the world, it was a good fun filled weekend.

 

My time on their farm was really enjoyable most mornings I was milking the cow by myself while Sammie performed other jobs in the dairy, I also cut hay in the fields as well as teddered the hay and raked it so I could then collect it with the pickup wagon. I also worked on their 1947 Hurlimann tractor and got it to run again for the first time in two years!

 

Learning about the way of organic dairy farming was very interesting and to have a hands on approach made it really sink in how it works, I really enjoyed the four weeks I spent with their family, not one day was the same from working on the farm, climbing mountains, going to a truck show and learning about their traditions.

 

On July 13th I moved to my new host family in Eggberge Uri. Eggberge is a remote town alp in the canton of Uri. The host family’s farm is 1800 metres above sea level, and they farm here all year around by housing their beef cows in a barn in the winter months. Of a morning, we would walk to the cows that were out in the mountain areas to make sure they were all there. Once this was done, we were doing machinery maintenance and hay making. Due to the steep slopes of the paddocks here we used small walk behind machines with a sickle bar mower attached to the front of them. The hay stays on the ground for around 24 hours and is teddered 2 or 3 times due to the poor weather conditions.  Once that has been done we used a self-propelled forage wagon to pick up the hay, in some parts of the hills it is too steep for the machine so we use rakes and leaf blowers to blow the grass to the bottom of the hill. I also had the chance to spend the day in a truck, where we delivered concrete panels for a flood wall, it was also interesting to see how the transport industry works here as well as farming; farming in the alpine regions is definitely a lot different compared to my last host family.

 

On July 26th I moved to my last host family, the Wettstein’s from the town of Remetschwil. They are a very busy family; their farming operation consists of a beef calf rearing operation where they get the calves at approximately three weeks old and grow them out to 10 months old to be sent for slaughter. During this process they are kept in the barn as their fields are utilised for crop growing where they plant crops such as maize/corn, wheat, barley and rape seed. I was fortunate enough to spend time in a harvester while the rape seed was being harvested. They also have their own biogas plant, as well as running a contracting division of the farm where they plant crops, perform grown work, do hay, silage and straw baling in round or square bales. As well as snow ploughing in winter months.

 

My time on their farm was spent in the workshop performing maintenance on machinery, some round silage bailing, collecting big straw square bales and transporting them back to the farm. I was also fortunate enough to go to work with their second eldest son at the Fendt tractor dealership. My time at the Wettstein’s farm really flew and I had a fantastic time working with them on their farm, the two weeks I spent there felt like two days by the end of it.

 

The new skills I have learnt in the 8+ weeks of the exchange will be invaluable; it was fantastic to see how they can farm on such small acreage and live off it. I look forward to telling your more about the trip when our paths cross next.  I would like to thank Rural Youth Tasmania, and my sponsor, Rabobank, for this amazing opportunity, and recommend to any Rural Youth member to apply for a study tour.

 

Cheers Matthew Wadley.