Your favourite fruit and veg might become scarcer and more expensive as poor weather conditions and producers exiting the market are creating the "perfect storm", experts have said.
The heavy rain this spring, followed by the June heat wave, is affecting growth levels. Shortfalls in favourites like broccoli, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, onions and potatoes are coming, it is claimed. This follows a shortage of cucumbers, lettuce, peppers, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes, and turnips earlier this year.
Analysts have said that availability will be down and prices will go up. Irish Farmers’ Association’s former chairman Paul Brophy revealed Ireland has needed to import product and this has “almost doubled in price overnight”. He said: “We’re backed into a corner because we are dependent on very high prices of imported products. We’ve been predicting this – and now it’s a reality.”
There has also been a dramatic drop in producer numbers from over 400 in recent years to less than 100 currently, reports Buzz.ie. Mr Brophy said: "When you combine that with poor yields [due to weather], it is a perfect storm. It was the wettest March ever recorded, so we were all late putting in our potatoes and veg and other crops.
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“Everything was four to five weeks later than normal. The conditions weren’t even ideal then. That has had an impact. Then we had a prolonged drought for five weeks. Crops have been under stress and the yield suffered.”
Meanwhile, Agricultural Consultant Dr Richard Hackett warned that Europe, in general, is running out of water to grow vegetables. He also warned of shortfalls and explained sourcing produce from other markets like Spain and the UK is difficult.
He said: “They’ve had a very difficult time too. They’ve labour issues and they have poor returns from growers too. There isn’t the stuff there in Europe. There isn’t the stuff from the UK [because] Brexit had a severe impact on our supply chain. The growers in the UK are under severe pressure as well; the number of growers in the UK is collapsing. They had worse weather than we had.
He told Newstalk: “What happened this year, during the very wet March and April, [Irish farmers] just couldn’t plant the crops. The crops were sitting in boxes and seed bags where they shouldn’t be. Then, when the weather stopped raining, the moisture deficit meant that the crops couldn’t establish.”
Fine Gael senator Regina Doherty called on the Government to support growers. She said: “The steep increases in energy costs that we are all experiencing, combined with a supply chain crisis, are exacerbated when it comes to an industry that is already struggling.”
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