Swiss World Food Prize winner and entomologist Hans Rudolf Herren founds Biovision together with Andi Schriber, Mathis Zimmermann and Jürg Weber with the aim of sustainably improving the living conditions of people in Africa and preserving nature as the basis of all life. In the 1980s, Hans Rudolf Herren’s biological methods for controlling an insect pest devastating to cassava saved millions of people in Africa from starvation.

The first projects in sub-Saharan Africa begin. They support local populations with ecological solutions for securing their livelihoods. Agroecology is the underlying concept behind the ecological solutions.

The World Agriculture Report, co-chaired by Hans Rudolf Herren, calls for a radical change in agriculture. It provides the starting point for Biovision’s engagement in international and national politics. The aim of this work is to promote suitable political framework conditions to transform the food system according to agroecological principles.

The independent partner organization Biovision Africa Trust (BvAT), based in Nairobi, implements the Farmer Communication Programme. Biovision’s informational project includes training courses, a farmer’s newspaper, radio programmes and the internet platform Infonet. BvAT now reaches over four million farmers every year.  

The living conditions of people in Africa can only improve permanently if the global North recognizes its role in the overexploitation of resources and climate change and contributes to change. In 2011 Biovision expands its commitment in Switzerland. The awareness-raising programme in Switzerland uses knowledge transfer and sensitization to bring climate change and global injustices to the attention of the Swiss public and demonstrates how responsible consumption can counteract this development. 

Biovision is the first Swiss non-governmental organization to be granted general consultative status in the United Nations Economic and Social Council. This entitles Biovision to participate in UN conferences and to actively engage in changing international framework conditions. 

Biovision and its co-founder Hans Rudolf Herren are awarded the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the alternative Nobel Prize) for their commitment to overcoming hunger and to supporting the transition to sustainable food systems.  

Biovision and the interdisciplinary Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) in Bern establish the Sustainable Development Solutions Network Switzerland (SDSN). The network, which Biovision hosts and supports in terms of content and funding, promotes the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in business, politics, science and civil society. 

Biovision strengthens its commitment at the national level and works in solution-oriented and science-based ways to promote social and political framework conditions for a sustainable food system in line with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Biovision and the Centre Ecologique Albert Schweitzer (CEAS) create an alliance within the framework of a joint programme, enabling mutual learning and expanding their thematic and geographical scope. The programme is financially supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Together with our partners SDSN and Landwirtschaft mit Zukunft, we presented 126 recommendations from the first Swiss Citizens’ Council for Food Policy and the recommendations of the scientific panel to Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin. Although the civil society group and the scientists developed their recommendations (only available in French, German and Italian) for policymakers independently of each other, the recommendations were extremely similar and demonstrated the broad consensus for greater sustainability in the food system.