The Canton of Fribourg officially launches the St-Aubin AgriCo Campus
On 16 October 2019, Fribourg Ministers Olivier Curty and Didier Castella officially launched the new AgriCo Campus in St-Aubin dedicated to value creation in the sectors of agriculture, nutrition and biomass. They seized this opportunity to announce nearly CHF 4 million in overall funding to completely overhaul the site’s administration building, particularly intended to provide office space and conference rooms.
With its large industrial zones suitable for construction, service buildings also equipped with laboratory installations, a million m2 (square meters) of agricultural land providing the possibility to carry out large-scale experiments – in collaboration with the operational farmer –, the AgriCo Campus, short for the Swiss Campus for Agri and Food Innovation, is simply in a class by itself. Located in the plain of the Broye region, the AgriCo Campus is dedicated to value creation in the sectors of agriculture, nutrition and biomass. Its unique conception makes it possible to cover the entire range of stages involved from applied research to final production in accordance with the “From Farm to Fork” principle. The aim is also to promote multiple synergies between private stakeholders, institutional actors and academic partners, in particular the Grangeneuve Agricultural Institute and Agroscope, the Swiss center of excellence for agricultural research.
The AgriCo Campus proposes not only office space and laboratories, but also 150,000 m2 of land suitable for the construction of operational activity zones. Five start-ups and SMEs have already settled in, and the site boasts of the capacity to welcome some twenty companies and five or six industrial projects.
Several companies are currently holding discussions with the Fribourg Development Agency on the possibility of setting up shop at AgriCo, among which, a potential tenant of particularly high renown: the SQTS (Swiss Quality Testing Services) Company, provider of laboratory services to the Migros Group, which, for instance, tests the quality of food products.
As concerns the refurbishment of the administrative building, on 8 October 2019, the Fribourg State Council decided to allocate an amount of nearly CHF 4 million for a complete modernization. With time, the building will host, among other things, the reception, a cafeteria, offices, and conference rooms.
The press conference also provided the occasion to launch a new website, www.agrico.swiss, designed to facilitate companies interested in installing operations at AgriCo in establishing contact and obtaining information.
As Fribourg Minister Olivier Curty stated: “The AgriCo Campus is the only one of its kind. It represents a new offering vested with exceptional potential in an agrifood sector that has become a challenge for society.”
In the Canton of Fribourg, the agrifood supply chain, in a broad sense, accounts for approx. 20% of all jobs. In order to further strengthen its position and to foster the creation of value and innovation in this sector, the Canton of Fribourg is at present formulating a development strategy for the agrifood industry. By becoming a campus dedicated to value creation in the sectors of agriculture, nutrition and biomass, the St-Aubin site – property of the Canton since 2017 –, is called upon to play a key role in the implementation of this strategy.