Bumper potato harvests spell crisis for European farmers

Employees of an agricultural cooperative sort potatoes after harvesting in Geer, eastern Belgium on September 26, 2025. [AFP]

Farmers across Europe are protesting amid one of the most plentiful potato harvests in years, as the unintended consequences of US tariffs and increased competition drive down prices.

More than twenty tonnes of potatoes were dumped in front of the National Assembly in Paris last month, heaped into piles and peppered with French and trade union flags, in a vivid display of farmers' frustrations.

"It costs us less to give these potatoes to Parisians than to store them ourselves," Denis Lavenant, a farmer from the Yvelines region, told AFP.

Belgian farmers also handed out potatoes to passers-by on a Flanders highway, coupled with leaflets denouncing crashing prices and EU free trade agreements.

The sector is facing a "real challenge this year", Francois-Xavier Broutin, the director of economic affairs at CNIPT, which represents the French potato industry, told AFP.

The main reason, he said, was "the imbalance between supply and demand".

The North-Western European Potato Growers (NEPG) network, which brings together the four leading European producers (Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands), has been warning about overproduction on the continent for months.

In these countries, which account for two-thirds of European production, the volumes harvested in 2025 are approaching 30 million tonnes, a 10 percent increase year-on-year.

"What's unusual about this season is that the harvest is abundant in all the major producing countries," said Boutin, who added that Germany, the leading European producer, is having its "best harvest in 25 years".

But with demand weakening across the continent, that increase in supply has been cause for concern rather than celebration.

Demand has dropped, the NEPG says, due to several factors: Weaker demand for frozen french fries after US tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump; "a strong euro against the dollar" hurting European exports overall; and increased production from foreign competitors including China, India, Egypt and Turkey.

The growers' network claims that in the past two years, China and India, the world's two leading producers, have "increased their frozen French fry exports to neighbouring countries tenfold," while EU exports declined.

For Broutin, however, the crisis is only temporary, as "global demand continues to rise," which he believes will eventually catch up to increasing potato volumes.

While that suggests the European potato sector is not under threat in the long-term, farmers are still feeling the immediate consequences.

At the end of last year, the NEPG network bluntly asked European farmers if they were ready to "produce while losing money".

Two months later, as the March-April planting season approaches, there are clear signals that farmers may have to reconsider how much land they will dedicate to potatoes.

In France, the UNPT, the main producers' association, is denouncing both a decline in the number of contractual agreements, which would guarantee farmers a price negotiated in advance, and a 25 percent drop in the contract prices offered.

The price of a tonne of Fontane potatoes, one of the main cultivated varieties, is expected to drop to around 130 euros in 2026 from 180 euros last year, according to the UNPT.