Potato harvest comes to a standstill due to lack of demand

Viaverda surveyed its Flemish members on October 24th to determine the harvest's progress. It's been a week now, and the harvest isn't finished yet. Almost all the growers who completed the survey indicated that this year they're using improvised storage facilities to accommodate all the kilos. These are potatoes that should have been delivered directly from the field. The largest growers (more than 150 hectares) are facing the least significant problems. Only 10% indicated they need temporary storage.

Large growers still have a lot to harvest
This may be due to the harvest progress at these farms. On October 24th, only 40% of the large farms had completed harvesting, while 60% had completed three-quarters. The smaller the grower (in terms of acreage), the greater the progress. An exception to the rule is the group with 50 to 75 hectares, where 70% still had a quarter of their acreage to harvest. Across all respondents (79 farms), almost three-quarters had completely finished harvesting. This mainly concerns the smaller farms with a maximum of 25 hectares.

In itself, it's not unusual that harvesters were still operating in the field at the beginning of November. The 2025 harvest could have proceeded quickly, had drought not thrown a wrench in the works. In hindsight, stopping the harvesters was a wise decision. There are now quite a few reports of bruising in storage, particularly in the clay regions where it was very dry: Zeeland and West Flanders. Last week, a considerable amount of harvesting was also carried out in our country, both for consumption and seed potatoes, under excellent conditions.

4.000 hectares to be cleared
Viaverda estimates that 92% of the Flemish acreage (51.064 hectares) has now been harvested. After all the rainfall and a reasonably good weather forecast, this should no longer be an obstacle to harvesting the remaining 4.000 hectares. A portion of the acreage also remains in Wallonia. The situation is now straining the buyers who need to receive the potatoes. This situation may be exacerbated by the weeks-long standstill at Clarebout. Even without the strike, the company had already anticipated a bottleneck in the field harvest and advised growers to organize temporary storage.

The above-average potato production this season is an added bonus that the European market absolutely cannot use. At the start of the harvest, buyers immediately rushed to find alternative uses for surplus produce, primarily animal feed. This was hoped to provide some breathing room for the market heading into next year. With the potatoes literally piling up, the likelihood of this happening is decreasing.

Ask for quality
It's not just growers' warehouses that are full. Factories also have their cold stores filled to the brim. stuffed up with the final product, resulting in a slower processing speed. This is also reported by the UNPT in France. Other sales channels, such as flake and granulate production, are also struggling and are experiencing disappointing sales. The only sales segment that remains reasonably thriving is the export of Agria and other premium varieties. Incidentally, tenders have also been issued for this variety for the industrial and peeling sectors. With some ingenuity, Fontane is being listed in Belgium and Germany, but there is no real market. This concerns the kilos of potatoes supplied. The fact that the industrial sector is still purchasing batches of French fry potatoes may have a lot to do with the aforementioned quality problems. 

Quality will likely continue to play a role to some extent until the end of the year. Temperatures will rise this week to highs of 17 to 18 degrees Celsius. There are already reports of considerable germination in the potatoes. Planting was generally a few weeks earlier this year, MH uptake wasn't good everywhere, and harvesting took place in warm weather. As a result, many potatoes are struggling in storage. In addition, there are field potatoes from September, which weren't treated with MH, and still need to be harvested or delivered. Things are getting tense there as well.

test balloons
All in all, the 2025/26 potato season could add another special chapter to its already unique story. In the coming weeks, growers will also be able to present the first contract proposals for the 2026 harvest year. Various rumors are already circulating, particularly regarding Belgium. Whether these represent actual contracts or trial balloons being floated before the vote is unclear. From the field, there is talk of a price decrease of 2 cents, and from storage, depending on the variety and delivery period, a decrease of 4 to 5 cents on last year's price. This would make the 10% to 15% reduction previously reported this fall a reality. It remains to be seen to what extent factories will reduce seed potato costs to see how substantial the reduction will be.