Switzerland: Why this year will be fateful for Swiss potatoes

Welcome to Bättenkinden, in the Bernese countryside. The name doesn't mean much to you? Yet perhaps that’s where the potatoes that end up on your plate come from. In the fields of this Emmental village, two worlds meet. On the right, stems aligned, thick and strong, the leaves an intense green, white flowers at the top while below, under the earth, small tubers grow at the end of each root to become large apples earthen. Report from the Kartoffelfeldern in Bättenkinden, Berner Emmental, mit Kartoffelbauer Ruedi Fischer. What is happening in Ruedi Fischer's field? image: watson/aylin erol On the left, things look less good: the stems are thin and yellowish, the brown leaves appear dried out. Ruedi Fischer stands in front of the strip of fresh grass that separates these two worlds. He shakes his head, dismayed by what he sees. “The contrast is striking, isn’t it?” Ruedi Fischer Ruedi Fischer is a potato farmer. Just like his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather. Since ...