After six months of waiting, the potato producers in France will finally be able to be compensated “for the losses resulting from diverting unprocessed potatoes to other outlets, in the context of the health crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic”, according to FranceAgrimer, the French establishment for agriculture and sea products.

Producers have until February 2 to apply. Due to the lockdowns and closure of foodservice establishments, “a large stock of tubers could not be recovered and needed to be destroyed by sending them to methanization, industrial composting and animal feed,” notes FranceAgrimer. The public body also recognizes that “the arrival of the 2020 harvest prompted the rapid emptying of the tuber storage facilities”.

The Ministry of Agriculture encourages producers to apply for financial aid no later than February 2. To qualify, producers must have cleared their potatoes between May 1 and September 15, 2020. The flat rate for potatoes sent for animal feed, industrial composting or anaerobic digestion is EUR50 per ton. The threshold for minimum eligible losses is 24 tons of potatoes per farm and per applicant, which corresponds to a minimum amount of EUR1,200. A maximum budget of EUR4m is available for this aid, an amount that falls short of the EUR10m Didier Guillaume, then Minister of Agriculture, had promised to producers in June.