In the Manche region of France and across Europe’s potato belt, the 2025 season has become a case study in agricultural market failure. Despite a record-breaking harvest, farmers are confronting a financial disaster. The director of the Manche Vegetable Producers Group (GPLM), Cédrick Gallot, states plainly: “The potato sector is going through a major crisis.” This crisis is defined by a profound disconnect between the reality in the fields and the mechanisms of the market, threatening the viability of countless farms.
The Numbers Behind the Crisis
The data from the ground is stark. Thomas Onfroy, a producer and president of the GPLM, reports that the current farmgate price has collapsed to €0.15 per kilogram, a fraction of last year’s price of €0.35/kg. With the cost of production estimated between €5,000 and €10,000 per hectare, farmers are losing between €2,000 and €4,000 per hectare before even accounting for their own labor. This price is not only below the cost of production; it is unsustainably low. For context, some supermarkets continue to sell potatoes at over €1.20/kg, indicating that the financial pain is not being passed down the chain to consumers but is being absorbed entirely by producers.
The root cause is a significant oversupply. Following a strong 2024 production, farmers across France and the EU expanded their planted area. France alone now cultivates over 197,000 hectares of potatoes. This has created a massive surplus. In the Manche, a key region for early potatoes, over 4,000 tonnes were produced, but 1,000 tonnes of the ‘Colomba’ summer variety remain unharvested in the ground due to a lack of buyers. The situation is reportedly even more severe in the Hauts-de-France, the heart of French potato production, where prices have plummeted to a mere €0.05/kg for processing.
Systemic Failures and the Limits of Charity
The crisis is exposing critical flaws in the supply chain. The traditional outlets for surplus are failing. Gallot notes, with disbelief, that even gleaners are absent from the fields—a stark indicator of the sheer scale of the surplus. More alarmingly, some charitable organizations are reportedly refusing donations of potatoes, likely due to saturation and the high costs associated with logistics, storage, and distribution. This has led to the destructive but economically rational decision for farmers to destroy perfectly edible crops, with 120 tonnes already plowed under in the Manche alone.
A Broader European Context
This is not an isolated French problem. The European potato market is highly interconnected. A 2024 report from the EU’s Agricultural Markets Division highlighted that a combination of high yields in 2023 and expanded plantings across Northwestern Europe in 2024 was creating a “significant oversupply situation, putting downward pressure on prices.” The situation in 2025 appears to be the realization of this forecast. Furthermore, the reliance on the volatile “auction clock” system leaves producers exposed to daily price shocks with no safety net, while the power of large retailers allows them to maintain high margins even as producer prices collapse.
The 2025 potato price collapse is more than a simple market correction; it is a symptom of a fragile and unbalanced agricultural system. Record production, instead of being a triumph, has become a trigger for farm-level ruin. The crisis underscores the urgent need for structural solutions that go beyond crisis management. These could include enhanced market transparency, stronger producer organizations to negotiate fairer contracts, and the development of value-added and export channels to absorb surplus. Without systemic change that better aligns production with demand and ensures a fair distribution of value along the supply chain, the very foundation of professional potato farming in Europe is at risk. The fields may be full, but without a viable economic model, the future for those who tend them is bleak.
