Apple farmers in Kent are digging up their orchards in the face of stagnant returns on the fruit. According to British Apples & Pears Limited (BAPL), the industry is on a ‘knife edge’. Input prices - which include picking, energy, haulage and packaging - have risen 23%, while the amount supermarkets pay growers for their produce has increased 0.8% year-on-year, BAPL said.
Reuben Collingwood, from Tenterden, is a fourth generation farmer who said his fruit-growing business was facing huge financial losses. "We use a lot electricity for our cold storage to be able to provide food throughout the winter," he explained. "That's gone up 300% on last year, labor's gone up 15% and it's due to go up again in April."
Apples and pears could be next UK food shortage
Apples and pears could be the next food shortage in the UK, after it emerged that British growers are planting just a third of the number of trees needed to maintain orchards.
Ali Capper, head of the British Apples & Pears trade association which represents about 80% of the industry in the UK, said 1m new trees would have to be planted each year to maintain the UK’s 5,500 hectares of production.
This year farmers had planned to order just 480,000 apple and pear trees but that has been slashed to 330,000. Capper said the key reason for the lack of investment was “supermarket returns that are unsustainable”.
Source: theguardian.com