Brits have been warned that current supermarket vegetable shortages could just be “the tip of the iceberg”.
The deputy president of the National Farmers' Union (NFU) issued the warning as over the last few days a number of supermarket giants have introduced limits on certain fresh produce.
Tom Bradshaw, of the NFU, said that a reliance on imports left the UK more vulnerable than ever to “shock weather events”.
This, combined with soaring energy prices for farmers that have been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, have put off some from growing vegetables in the UK and left greenhouses “sitting there empty”.
Speaking to Times Radio he said the UK was at a “tipping point” and needed to take “command of the food we produce".
He said: "We've been warning about this moment for the past year. The tragic events in Ukraine have driven inflation, particularly energy inflation to levels that we haven't seen before.
"There's a lack of confidence from the growers that they're going to get the returns that justify planting their glasshouses, and at the moment we've got a lot of glasshouses that would be growing the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, aubergine that are sitting there empty because they simply couldn't take the risk to plant them with the crops, not thinking they'd get the returns from the marketplace.
"And with them being completely reliant on imports - we'd always have some imports - but we've been completely reliant on imports (now).
"And when there's been some shock weather events in Morocco and Spain, it's meant that we've had these shortages.
"It's really interesting that before Brexit we didn't used to source anything, or very little, from Morocco but we've been forced to go further afield and now these climatic shocks becoming more prevalent have had a real impact on the food available on our shelves today."
A combination of bad weather and transport problems in north Africa and southern Spain has caused a tomato shortage to extend to other vegetables and fruit.
During this time of the year, most of the country’s produce comes from those two regions, but flooding and frost in Morocco and poor weather in Spain has led to the issues.
The Fresh Produce Journal summed it up as a “perfect storm”.
This week a number of leading supermarkets introduced limits for customers on certain items of fruit and vegetables.
Asda introduced a limit of three items each on packs of tomatoes, pepper, cucumbers, lettuce, salad bags, broccoli, cauliflower and raspberries.
Meanwhile Morrisons had a limit of two items per customer for tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, and peppers.
Tesco and Aldi both introduced three per customer limits on peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes as well.
Andrew Opie, of the British Retail Consortium, said: “Difficult weather conditions in the south of Europe and northern Africa have disrupted harvest for some fruit and vegetables.
"However, supermarkets are adept at managing supply chain issues and are working with farmers to ensure that customers are able to access a wide range of fresh produce."
Farmers have also been left struggling with staff shortages because of Brexit and changes to the support payments to replace workers from the EU.
