With a fork in hand, a few dozen people strolled over the field of farmer Kees Roelen from Zevenbergen on Saturday afternoon. He was the only one in Brabant to participate in the National Potato Harvesting Day. It was created to promote the potato. Not an unnecessary luxury, according to the potato farmer. “Young people in particular are increasingly eating rice or pasta instead of the traditional Dutch potato.”
Especially families with small children went to Zevenbergen to harvest potatoes on the loose sand field. That turned out not to be very difficult. Many potatoes are already visible on the surface. With a fork in hand, a kilo bag is quickly filled.
“I want to teach my son where his food comes from.”
“It’s actually very easy,” says Marloes Jansen from Roosendaal. She is harvesting potatoes with her daughter and son. “My son is very interested in where things come from and I try to teach him that,” says Marloes. Although the temperatures are still summery, she wants to make a nice stew later this week with the potatoes harvested herself.
Tamara from Terheijden has just filled a bag of potatoes with her son. “Always when he can do something himself, such as at the petting zoo, he is happy. He is very enthusiastic and even wants to fill a bag.” For Tamara it is especially important to teach her child where potatoes come from and that they do not come from the supermarket. She will make fries from the potatoes she has harvested herself.
“The harvest is not that bad despite the drought.”
Despite the enormous drought this year, the harvest seems to be going well, according to farmer Kees. “It’s better to have drought than extreme rainfall.” And that is of course also good news for potato prices.
After weeks of preparations, farmer’s wife Rian Roelen was especially curious about how many people will come. “Because we want to promote the potato and get it on people’s plates more often.” In this regard, the National Potato Harvest Day seems to have been successful, because at the end of the day a lot of potatoes have been harvested by hand. In the coming week, the machines will take over the harvesting, because that goes just a little faster.