Fears over future of Britain's food: Fruit farmer says industry is in 'crisis' after wet summer...
Fears over future of Britain's food: Fruit farmer says industry is in 'crisis' after wet summer while meat bosses also issue warning over falling number of abattoirs
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A fruit farmer has warned Britain's food industry is 'in crisis' after a wet summer decimated his crops, as meat bosses issue warnings over the rapidly falling number of abattoirs.
Jonathan Hoskyns, a third generation farmer at North Perrott Farm in Somerset, says the wet weather decimated his apple crop and led to a 75 per cent reduction in the size of his other crop yields.
He claims he and his fellow small-scale fruit growers across Britain are struggling to survive because of spiralling costs, which has meant he has stopped selling his produce to supermarkets.
Mr Hoskyns' outcries come as the British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) claim that the falling numbers of British abattoirs now risks 'seriously jeopardising' the country's food security.
It blamed the threat to the abattoir industry on falling farm production, 'increasingly onerous' trade barriers and a 'systemic' labour shortage.
Mr Hoskyns said: 'The wet weather this summer has led to poor germination. We have a full Bramley apple crop but the fruit is much smaller, and other crops are at 50 and even 25 per cent yield.
'We are in a position where we can no longer afford to sell our apples to supermarkets.'
Mr Hoskyns highlighted a 30 per cent increase in the minimum wage in the past three years, combined with fertilisers more than doubling in cost.
In contrast, the price of fruit in supermarkets has increased 23 per cent, not keeping up with their outgoings.
Mr Hoskyns said they have reduced the size of their apple and pear orchards from 50 acres to 15 acres to adapt to the new pressures.
Instead of selling to supermarkets, the fruit farmer says he will instead use all his apples to produce fruit juice which he sells in his farm shop and online.
He added: 'In the last three years, with increases in the minimum wage, our horticultural wages have gone up 30 per cent.
'At the same time, the cost of fertilisers is up over 100 per cent yet the price supermarkets pay for fruit is up just 23 per cent.
'We have adapted and are growing enough apples to sell as fruit juice, but we know of many small, independent fruit farms which have shut in the past five years.
'The industry is in a bit of a crisis but we are trying to circumnavigate that by processing our own fruit at the farm and turning it into apple juice.
'We know what the costs are and we can name the price to sell at a profit.'
According to DEFRA, the production volumes of fruit across the United Kingdom decreased by 12per cent in 2023/24 to 585,000 tonnes.
In January, Kent fruit grower Bardsley England announced it was in the process of being wound down due to 'unsustainable' losses thought to be over £6million.
Elsewhere in the farming industry, the number of British abattoirs has fallen from about 2,500 in the 1970s to just 203.
The British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) said the 'worrying' long-term trend of falling livestock numbers and 'huge' drop in abattoir numbers would, left unchecked, jeopardise Britain's food security.
The BMPA said this should worry UK consumers and government alike because a lack of a viable abattoir industry would lead to a sharper decline in domestic farming, a heavier reliance on imported meat and 'the loss of a key pillar of UK food security'.
It said that, although 'contentious', the meat processing industry could survive without British livestock and, if necessary, could replace meat from UK-reared animals with imported meat.
However, British livestock farmers could not survive without abattoirs.
In its first 'Meat Industry Manifesto' the BMPA said: 'If we let this trend continue, Britain is in danger of throwing away one of the key strategically important parts of UK infrastructure and seriously jeopardising the country's food security.
'It will expose the UK to risks beyond our control like wars, climate change-driven shortages and export bans where supplies are suddenly cut off.'
BMPA chief executive Nick Allen said: 'Since we left the EU the British meat industry has come under pressure from increased bureaucracy, tougher trade barriers and worker shortages.
'Government policy has played a dominant role and shaped the current trading environment.
'But many policy decisions have been made in a departmental vacuum, without a full understanding of the impacts and unintended consequences they will have on different parts of the food chain. Often, one problem is fixed, only to create another.
'We see the election of a new Labour Government as an opportunity to re-set how government and industry work together to share on-the-ground intelligence that will help shape pragmatic, workable policies that strengthen Britain's long-term food security.'