Switzerland Today

Greetings from glorious Bern,

The Swiss capital is enjoying cloudless skies, autumn colours worthy of New England and a wonderfully limpid River Aare, which is still beautiful despite being at its lowest level that I can remember. It’s hard to believe that just a couple of months ago it burst its banks following one of the wettest summers on record. One consequence of all that water has been a poor harvest for various crops – the latest victim being the pumpkin.

Keystone / Martial Trezzini

In the News:  The Covid-19 pandemic has caused life expectancy in Switzerland to fall for the first time in decades.

• A boy born last year could expect to live for 81.0 years (down from 81.9 in 2019); a girl could expect to make it to 85.1 (down from 85.6).
• Roger Federer continued to tumble down the world tennis rankingsExternal link. Having fallen out of the top ten last week, this week he’s ranked a lowly 15. The 40-year-old magician hasn’t played since Wimbledon last July and is recovering from an injured knee.
• In the fight against Covid-19 a high vaccination rate and a new vaccination offensive is the only option, says Swiss Health Minister Alain Berset. “What’s the alternative? Shrug our shoulders and do nothing?” He has also warned of problems when travelling abroad if voters reject the Covid law in a nationwide referendum next month.

© Keystone / Christian Beutler

Disinformation – the deliberate spreading of false news – was considered a “major to very major problem” by almost half of respondents to a representative analysis of the Swiss media.

Social media (62%), alternative media (39%), video portals (36%) and messenger apps (28%) were cited as the main sources of fake news, according to the Yearbook Quality of the Media 2021External link, published today by the Research Centre Public and Society (Fög) of the University of Zurich. Professional journalism services such as news sites (20%) or television (13%) were mentioned less often as a source of fake news.

The study also found that the Swiss media had paid very high attention to the second wave of Covid-19 but not as much attention as during the first wave, despite higher case numbers. What’s more, coronavirus was explicitly presented as a threat less often than during the first wave.

As a result, the media could not be accused of scaremongering, said the Fög’s director, Marc Eisenegger. Neither was there evidence of fawning articles about the government: only 0.3% of articles were classified as very positive towards the authorities.

© Keystone / Alexandra Wey

While Halloween isn’t widely celebrated in Switzerland, at this time of year you’ll see many pumpkins of various shapes, sizes and colours on front steps and gardens.

However, the dreadful summer, which saw flooding across many parts of the country, has resulted in a predictably poor harvest for many agricultural products. Today saw the double whammy of the worst honey yield for 15 yearsExternal link and reports that there’ll be fewer pumpkins and fewer varietiesExternal link.

“We’ve harvested about a third fewer pumpkins than in other years,” Domenica Schmid, who has been growing and selling winter squashes at the EichmatthofExternal link in northern Switzerland for 14 years, told the Aargauer Zeitung.

The first pumpkins have already sold out, others are a little small and some varieties have not germinated at all. All the rain in summer meant the soil became very hard shortly after sowing in May. “I was worried the seedlings wouldn’t even be able to break through the surface,” said Schmid, who with her husband grows and sells some 30 varieties of pumpkin.

Still, it could have been worse. The plants did eventually blossom, but the pumpkins ripened about three weeks later than usual. Winter set in shortly after the last ones were taken from the field. “Frost would have been bad,” Schmid said. Because pumpkins consist mainly of water, they could have frozen and rotted. “But that’s nature – we take what we get.”