Kilian Diethelm is prepared for the 2024 season and beyond.
Fruchthof Diethelm is a 7.5-ha fruit farm growing pome fruit, stone fruit, and a wide variety of berries. The farm is perched 440m above sea level overlooking Lake Zurich and is a complex operation with many fruit varieties and small fields to manage. Kilian and his wife, Sandra, have been managing the farm since 2003 and have been both expanding the number of varieties grown and advancing the technologies used in the field over the past 20 years.
A Bit of History
The farm’s history sits within the Diethelm family for more than 100 years. It was acquired in 1923 by Kilian’s grandparents, Berta and Josef Diethelm, who operated a dairy farm on the property. Kilian’s parents, Josef and Heidi, took over the business in 1971. Together, they expanded the farm operation to include pig farming in the 1980s. In the early 90s, the milk price collapsed, forcing an important decision for Fruchthof Diethelm.
It was time to leave the dairy business and focus on what was seen as the highest potential for the property, fruit, and berry production with direct sales to local customers and businesses.
In 1994, the first cherry trees and strawberries were planted. Apple, pear, and plum trees joined in 1995. Since those first trees were planted, a thriving business has grown beyond the field. Fruchthof Diethelm now hosts its own farm shop, which sells locally produced food, including a variety of Diethelm’s own fresh and processed fruit products.
Swiss Standards
Switzerland is known for having high standards for food production, which means the team at Fruchthof Diethelm takes compliance with regional standards seriously. It’s essential to their business to show their crops are locally grown and in accordance with
Suisse Garantie. This extensive standard ensures that quality assurance takes place across the entire production chain and includes regular checks by independent control bodies. Diethelm has an additional compliance process to verify their crops meet the requirements for local food labels, which is managed by the area canton.
Looking forward, Switzerland is currently working on implementing the 2021 parliamentary initiative “Reducing the risk of pesticide use”. to support the monitoring and,ultimately, reduction of plant protection product use. The BLW, or Federal Office of Agriculture, has initiated a digital reporting system (DigiFLUX) for farms to submit their use of plant protection measures, which is expected to be a requirement for farms starting in 2026.
Fortunately, Fruchthof Diethelm is well prepared for a future with more regulatory requirements.
Simplifying Compliance
With many different varieties of fruit and 70 sub-plots at Fruchthof Diethelm, the process of accurately documenting crop treatments has been time-consuming.
‘It’s a very detailed recording, which isn’t easy on paper,’ recalls Kilian.
In 2021, Diethelm downloaded the Farmable App and started to test how he could use the tool to manage spray treatments.
‘I felt a huge relief. I could calculate and document the spraying work straight away.”
Even on his complex farm, it was easy to record and track crop protection. Kilian invited all his employees to use the app so that he could easily collect as much data and information as possible, ultimately enabling better decisions for his farming business.
Beyond saving time and energy managing the administration of spray logs, Farmable also reduced the effort required to prove the harvest location of the fruit grown at Fruchthof Diethelm. In the Farmable App, Kilian and his team can easily enter the field location, variety, and box count of harvested produce from a mobile device. With this data, the team can readily verify the requirements for the local labeling standards. This way, Kilian can prove that the fruit comes from his company and is not purchased externally.
Preparing Switzerland for Success
Farmable, like Fruchthof Diethelm, is preparing for a successful future in Swiss agriculture. In recent months, the global Agtech team has focused its efforts on the Swiss market, including an exhibition at last month’s Agrovina Conference in Martigny. Later this year, Farmable will launch an integration with “Meine Agrardatenfreigabe” in Agate to make the account set-up in Farmable seamless for all farmers in Switzerland. This will include easy access to their fields and the approved list of plant protection products for Swiss farms.
In preparation for 2026, Farmable is closely following the DigiFLUX project to integrate with the federal reporting tool as soon as possible, ensuring that Swiss farmers can comply with future reporting regulations in the easiest possible way.
But with all the Agtech floating around, why should farms in Switzerland give Farmable a try?
“The big win is the simplicity of the app,” shares Kilian.
A Future Ready Farm
With digital reporting processes already in place, the team at Fruchthof Diethelm is ahead of the curve in its preparation for future compliance regulations. The entire farming team can continue to build a useful data set that can be easily filtered and shared with different authorities when needed.
Using a farm management system enables the farm to have an ‘operating system’ that will be increasingly useful for gathering data to comply with future regulations. Today, Kilian uses the weather data from the state-provided solution, Agrometeo, but in the future, weather data, along with pest and disease metrics, will be an integral part of demonstrating alignment with Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Being able to pull reports that include data from multiple sources in one single tool and share this information easily will be essential to avoid drowning in paperwork.
Three generations of farmers are responsible for the success that continues today at Fruchthof Diethelm. Each generation has contributed to the business transforming itself to stay relevant and profitable in its time. It’s clear that Kilian and Sandra are paving a road for the success of the next generation of farmers at Fruchthof Diethelm with their proactive approach to managing the business with digital processes.
Regarding technological advancements on the farm, the pace of change is ramping up, and there is a lot to look forward to beyond 2024. Implementing Farm Management Software and ensuring access to quality weather data are two simple steps to ensure your farm is ready for the future and unlock the benefits of reduced administrative work and better decision-making. For your 2024 season, get the unglamorous tech working for you and your farm.
More on Fruchthof Diethelm
If you’d like to visit the Fruchthof Diethelm, you can find the farm on the outskirts of Siebnen. You get an easy overview of what’s currently in-store and the hours of operation at the Farm Shop online.
More on Farmable
Farmable Pro allows farms to easily manage their crop applications while seamlessly creating compliance reports in the background. Whether you grow apples in Switzerland or avocados in South Africa, Farmable Pro will simplify your compliance reporting for local pesticide reporting requirements to GlobalGAP certifications.
