A future for female farmers

From agricultural law to baking bread, a school for female farmers high on a mountain in canton Uri teaches all the skills needed to run a farm. (SRF/swissinfo.ch)

It’s not the first school of its kind in the canton of Uri. Between 1946 and 1996 there was a training programme in the Reuss valley in the village of Gurtnellen. It was part of a Christian boarding school for girls, managed by the Ingenbohl nuns. The young women were trained to run a household and to support the work of men on the farm.

Twenty years later, thanks to the initiative of the authorities in canton Uri, the school has reopened. It now offers a study programme targeted at women who want to become farmers.

The first 16 participants are living in the school’s boarding facilities, at almost 1000 metres above sea level. For the length of the intensive 4 1/2 months of training, the young women are schooled in subjects such as home economics, cooking, agrarian law and the tending of small livestock.

There seems to be great interest in the training: the first course was fully booked within days of being posted.