Drought Shrinks Belgian Potato Harvest, Threatening Fries Supply

Mathieu Comijn knelt in his field near Liege and pulled a potato from the cracked earth. It was the size of a ping-pong ball. He held it up, turned it over in his hands, and shook his head. "How do you make fries from this?" he asked aloud, uprooting another plant to find the same problem. At thirty years old, the Belgian farmer had never seen anything like it.

Normally, his Bintje potatoes—a prized variety in Belgium, destined for the golden fries sold in the country's friteries—should be four times this size by late August. But this summer brought a one-two punch of weather that broke the growing season. Heavy rains and storms in late spring had saturated the soil, weakening its structure. Then came the heat. Exceptionally hot, dry conditions followed, the kind scientists now link to human-caused climate change. The soil hardened into compact clumps so dense that potatoes, as Comijn explained it, "cannot breathe properly." They simply could not grow.

With harvest set for around September 20, none of his rows had reached marketable size. The only mercy was that the flavor remained intact, even if the tubers themselves had shriveled. Comijn's father, Stephane, had been so distressed by the sight that he refused to visit the field for days. "It's too painful," the septuagenarian said, wiping his forehead. He had worked the land for decades and could barely remember conditions this dry—perhaps only during the historic heatwave of 1976.

Yet the Comijn family, who farm 500 hectares of potatoes, could not simply accept the loss. They had supply contracts to fulfill. Before each harvest, growers and processors negotiate delivery volumes and prices, binding agreements that do not bend for weather. To meet their obligations, the Comijns would tap into last year's stored stock—potatoes they had begun throwing away to make room for this year's crop, back when the 2025 harvest had been so abundant they could not sell it all. Now, sitting in a refrigerated warehouse kept at 10 degrees Celsius, those old potatoes had become valuable. But Stephane knew it would not be enough.

Belgium holds a peculiar position in the global food system. It is the world's largest exporter of frozen fries, a distinction that comes with strict quality standards. The country's friteries—those beloved street stalls that dot every neighborhood—depend on a reliable supply of properly sized potatoes. When the supply tightens, everything downstream feels it. Stephane Comijn acknowledged the hard truth: "We're going to have to use varieties that aren't as good. People at the fry shops complain. You can explain to them that it's because of the drought, but they don't understand."

Bernard Lefevre, president of Belgium's national union of fry vendors, tried to offer perspective. He had worked in the sector for twenty-five years and had seen cycles swing both ways. "There's always a problem," he said. "Either there are too many potatoes and prices collapse, or it's the opposite extreme. And yet, year after year, we manage to get through it." But this year felt different. With supplies under genuine pressure, fry prices would almost certainly rise. For Lefevre, who represents 4,500 fry shops across Belgium, that was no small matter. "Aside from illness in the royal family," he told reporters, "the second worst piece of news a Belgian can hear is that the price of a cone of fries is going up."

The drought had turned a staple into a luxury, at least temporarily. Farmers would scramble to meet contracts with inferior stock. Fry vendors would face angry customers. And across Belgium, the simple pleasure of cheap, perfect fries—something the country had taken for granted—suddenly felt fragile.