In Belgium, one in 37 hectares of land is used for potato farming. Yves Grammen began growing potatoes in 1992 with two or three hectares, he explains that “today, with my son, as there are two of us, we farm no less than 200 hectares. We were growing until 2014, now we are doing less as there is too much acreage in Belgium and Europe.”
Production has strongly increased over the last few years, reaching almost 4 million tons with an estimated €400 million turnover. Farmers have had to adapt to the increasing demand, Yves has invested in 6 enormous coldstores to stock his potatoes in.
Yield is high, notably due to the climate and fertile fields in Belgium. However, this does not necessarily mean that the potato sector is doing well in Belgium. Pierre Lebrun, from the Walloon potato sector, explains that farmers sell potatoes aimed for industrial processing at €20-€25/ton for some varieties, and up to €35-€40 for others, “so we are 5 to 6 times below production costs”. Potato farming has replaced beet farming on many farms, and there are now over a thousand potato producers in Wallonia,