A bumper harvest has left Swiss farmers with more potatoes than the market can handle. Instead of ending up on dinner plates, many will be fed to cows – but only after being coloured and the farmers compensated. In the barn of farmer Andreas Schwab in canton Bern, three large trailers are piled high with potatoes. “It was a good potato year,” he says. Mild temperatures and well-timed rain created ideal growing conditions. “As a farmer, the first thing you’re happy about is when something turns out well.” But the good harvest has a downside: Schwab now has tonnes of surplus potatoes. He had a contract with the Inoverde cooperative to deliver 200 tonnes, but harvested around 240 tonnes. The extra 40 tonnes will mostly go to feed his own cows and those of a colleague in the Jura region. “That really hurts,” he admits. “But it’s the second-best solution.” The best would be for people to eat them. Yet even in a good year, Swiss plates don’t suddenly feature more rösti, chips or …