Seed Potato Farm

 The Heinis live about 3 miles from me. Their large family farm produces seed potato from laboratory slips, that the Heinis plant into their greeenhouse. Millions of grape sized potatoes are replanted into the fields for 4 successive years.  Each crop is subjected to that year's weather, bacterial infections and any other nasty that can be thrown at a potato. Heidi, with her Swiss accent, tells Ryouta about the big bags of potatoes behind them. Some potatoes are delivered in these, and some are delivered loose, by the truck load.

 These boxes have potatoes that are scarred from last year's rain. They are still good to plant, but the customer will not want them for fear that they carry disease.

 This is one of 3 buildings on the Heini farm. The others are for storage. This one is where all the action happens. The wooden office on stilts has a light in it and a small conveyor belt. Someone sits in this little room and picks through the potatoes for the first time. They are deposited into the crate to the right of the room, where a fork lift picks it up and carries it to the next sorting station.

  2 or more people grade them again. Grading consists of "good" or "bad". 

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 The conveyor belt runs almost the full length of the barn, into a truck that backs into the space and drives forward as it is filled.  The potatoes used to be trucked down to the US, but Canada had a potato blight last year (same one that Ireland starved as a result of it) so the borders were closed. Most of the potatoes will be shipped to Mexico and Canada to be grown for fries or potato chips.