Closing post
Time to wrap up, after another busy week.
Here’s today’s main stories so far, starting with the surprise pick-up in house prices last month.
Low UK potato harvests raise fears about Christmas supplies
More bad news! There are fears over UK potato supplies this Christmas.
UK farmers are struggling with one of the lowest potato harvests on record after an autumn of heavy rain, raising fears about supplies for this year’s Christmas dinners, my colleague Sarah Marsh reports.
Experts are warning that supermarkets could be forced to turn to imports from as far afield as Egypt to fill potential gaps on shelves, pushing up the environmental impact of the festive meal.
Fred Searle, the magazine editor of the Fresh Produce Journal, said potato planting had reduced significantly and the sector was “looking at the lowest UK crop on record this season”, with an estimate that about “4.1m tonnes of potatoes would be harvested, 2m less than five or six years ago”.
As well as the recent rain, Searle blamed the smaller harvest on businesses “dropping out of the sector due to cost pressures” exacerbated by years of erratic weather.
