Last week the Netherlands celebrated an impromptu National Potato Week, hoping to eat up a massive oversupply from this year’s crop, and they’re not alone.
In Belgium, the oversupply of potatoes is so great that in some stores the price has dropped to zero, although no one is yet being paid to buy potatoes—and the Flemish Center for Agro and Fisheries Marketing yesterday kicked off a Belgian version of the Dutch festival. And, a number of farms, including one in Flanders that’s sitting on a 120-tonne pile of future fries are giving away potatoes to anyone willing to take come to the farm and take them.
The root, if you’ll pardon a joke, of the problem is an unusually successful growing season. Flemish potato farmers largely grow potatoes for commercial processors. The farmers accept contracts for a certain amount for the year; the penalty for underproduction makes it worthwhile to aim for a bit extra, which can then be sold… usually.
The 4th-generation potato-farming family that got the publicity for their free offer, by the way, had another goal in mind as well: the older daughters of the family have been collecting contributions from ‘customers’ to buy a new bike for their younger brother.
