Where the Irish once had a potato famine, today, in 2026, Germany has the opposite problem: too many potatoes. After the largest potato harvest in 25 years, farmers found themselves buried under a surplus so massive it earned a nickname: the Kartoffel-Flut, or potato flood.
The Guardian reports that there are so many potatoes that in Berlin, farmers started giving away their excess. One farmer near Leipzig offered 4,000 tonnes after a sale collapsed, prompting a Berlin newspaper and an eco-friendly search engine called Ecosia to organize mass giveaways across the capital.
174 pickup points were rapidly established, allowing residents to stroll up and grab as many potatoes as they could carry. Plenty of people and organizations took advantage, including soup kitchens, shelters, schools, and churches. Even the Berlin Zoo got in on the action. Two truckloads of them were shipped off to Ukraine.
What’s Up With Germany Giving Away Free Potatoes?
It was either give them away for free to as many people and organizations as possible, or let them rot in a landfill. The giveaway was easily the wiser choice, especially considering that pictures of the surplus potatoes sitting in warehouses look like the sets James Cameron used to film scenes from Titanic, just replace the water with spuds.
The potato giveaway comes at a good time, just as Germany is being hit by rising living costs and freezing temperatures. They are ultimately just potatoes, but considering how versatile and nourishing they can be, it’s nice to get a bounty of them when times are tough.
The great potato giveaway isn’t making everyone happy. Some farmers warn that flooding Berlin with free potatoes devalues their crops, and environmental critics argue that a food system prone to wild overproduction isn’t good in the long run.
Maybe they’re right. But for now, there are still several tonnes of potatoes left to give away, so you might as well scoop them up if you’re near a pick-up location.
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