Key facts
Agroscope is the federal government’s competence centre for research in the agriculture and food industry and is part of the Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG). The FOAG is a specialist office of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER). Agroscope’s activities focus on research.
Since 2014, Agroscope has had to cope with numerous organisational changes, and since 2017 it has had a centralised cross-site procurement organisation. The head of procurement position could not be filled for a long time. A new person has been employed since July 2024 and she has the task of optimising procurement. The procurement volume of the contracts concluded by Agroscope in 2023 totalled around CHF 23 million and payments from current contracts amounted to around CHF 106 million.
The Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO) carried out the last procurement audit at Agroscope in 2015 and issued seven recommendations. A follow-up audit of these recommendations was carried out in 2018, which confirmed the existence of new requirements. No audit was conducted concerning the implementation of these requirements. The maturity of the procurement organisation has not increased noticeably since 2015 and remains low. This has resulted in various problems, including incorrect or non-compliant procurements. Agroscope has recognised the need for action and has introduced various measures. However, there is an urgent need for them to be intensified and timetabled.