4k tons of potatoes to be given away for free in Berlin

Economics of surplus and negative prices

• Several comments frame this as a textbook case of extreme supply vs. demand: beyond a point, the “price” to sell goes negative because disposal costs dominate.
• Analogies are drawn to electricity markets and the brief negative oil prices during the pandemic, where storage and ramp-up/ramp-down constraints made producers effectively pay others to take product.
• Some note that in agriculture and groceries, distribution and retailing often cost more than growing the crop, so “free at the farm” doesn’t translate to free in cities unless someone subsidizes logistics.

Who actually pays and how it’s organized

• Concern is raised that a farmer must be losing money; others clarify that in this case the farmer was already paid under a contract.
• The buyer faced low demand and high transport/distribution costs, so a newspaper and a company stepped in to cover those costs for a one-off campaign.
• Distribution is mostly via 1‑ton “big bags” to organizations that then pass potatoes on to individuals, suggesting the main channel is charities and social projects, not direct walk‑up consumers.

Waste, demand, and market impacts

• One camp argues this just shifts waste: people will substitute free potatoes for store-bought ones, leading to supermarkets discarding more.
• Others counter that even partial use is better than plowing the whole surplus under, and that some demand is elastic: people will eat more potatoes when they’re cheaper or free, or stock up and displace other staples.
• A separate worry is that large-scale free distribution might undercut small local sellers, though skeptics note German consumers are picky about potato varieties and that the specific bulk type may not overlap much with high-end local markets.

Food insecurity comparisons

• Commenters contrast this European surplus giveaway with US practices where excess crops are sometimes destroyed while people still experience food insecurity.
• There is debate over how severe US hunger is: advocacy stats (e.g., “1 in 7”) are critiqued as conflating occasional food insecurity with chronic hunger, yet multiple people insist school meals are crucial for many children.

Scale, units, and visualization

• There’s an extended side-thread on “tons” vs. metric tonnes, gigagrams, and “freedom units”, including playful approximations in cubic meters, elephant-equivalents, and numbers of meals/households.
• Some highlight that 4,000 metric tons = exactly four million kilograms, despite the article saying “almost.”

Alternative uses and lighthearted takes

• Suggestions range from fries, mash, and vodka/akvavit to biofuel and even a hypothetical “potato battery bank,” with rough back-of-envelope power calculations.
• Others lament that drying or processing into storable forms (e.g., mash, frozen fries) might be more efficient, but acknowledge that costs and logistics likely make that unrealistic here.