Viral 'free Potatoes' Post Cost This Farmer 150 Tons of Crops

The Internet is a scary thing.

He didn't think he needed surveillance cameras because the potatoes have eyes.

That’s genuinely evil by the original poster

Is a farmer not supposed to have a basic locked fence around his farmed produce? (I'm not referring to the farm itself.)

> Others loaded up to 60 tons at a time.

I have a feeling these are the ones that are the problem rather than folk with a hand basket.

A couple of similar examples from the United States

2007 Tacoma, WA https://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-stripped-in-craigslist-ho...

An online ad offering everything in the house for free left one landlord with quite a shock: By the time she realized what was going on, the house had been stripped of its light fixtures, hot water heater — even the kitchen sink.

2012 Woodstock, GA https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/foreclosed-family...

But big crowds showed up early, while the family was out, breaking into the house and taking practically everything inside, in part because the way that the craigslist ad was written gave them the idea that everything on the property was up for grabs.

> A rumor on Facebook said a farmer was giving away his potatoes. By sunrise, 150 tons of his hard-earned work had disappeared.

I don't know if you can blame the viral post itself. This has been my experience with humans in general. Take halloween. Leave a candy bowl out and ask people to take one or two 10-20% will comply and the rest will try to take the entire bowl.

The article itself said the farmer wanted people to "help themselves". It was his responsibility to set the rules and enforce them. Perhaps polish law is different but I doubt the police would do anything in the states (or any other western country). It's not theft when you say take what you want. I don't believe it's blaming the victim here to say that the farmer should've done a lot more work to meter out his potatoes.

This is just another example of the tragedy of the commons. You can't have truly shared resources because a minority will take the majority and ruin it for everyone. Every single time. This is also why food pantries and homeless shelters meter out food carefully. You even see this with super sales at the grocery store. I remember during COVID people were filling truck beds with discounted meat/fish/vegetables completely disregarding other people will need to eat too.

If you want to find who started the rumor, look for who took the 60 tons. That requires machinery which requires planning

1) what is this doing on hackernews?

2) Vice filed for backruptcy in 2023 and shuttered vice.com in 2024. Who the hell is running this?

3) Whoever it is, is just ripping off rando Polish local news sites?

I have no idea what’s going on here, but maaaaaybe this should not be here.

Hopefully the original poster is prosecuted for theft. The farmer needs to report this to the police.

Next time I see a "this farmer had to give away his crop for a pittance" posts I'm going to reply these posts arent harmless.

The person who made the post should face consequences for sure, but one thing I wonder about: if during the frenzy even one person (under the impression these were being given away for free) even thought to go find the farmer and say "thank you."

I realize he wasn't home, but discovering that fact I would imagine (maybe?) would raise some flags.

The interview with the farmer (distiller?) is here (0:33 in):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxTj9wwlbAU (Youtube has a setting for translation you'll need to turn on)