News in brief: Scottish farmers are grappling with significant food crop losses due to recent flooding, with millions of pounds worth of unharvested vegetables damaged. The farming union is urging immediate government assistance and long-term supply chain discussions, while analysts stress the need for climate change resilience efforts in the agriculture sector.
Scottish farmers are bemoaning the loss of food crops due to recent flooding as they suffered some of the biggest food crop losses in the industry’s history due to the weekend’s flooding.
NFU Scotland estimates that millions of pounds worth of unharvested vegetables was damaged, and some individual farmers have reported losing whole fields of vegetables worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The farming union has called for immediate help from the Scottish government and longer-term discussions about the burden being spread across the supply chain.
A United Kingdom-based fruit and vegetable producer, Stewarts of Tayside, estimated that half a million pounds worth of food crops, destined for supermarkets, have been ruined across 60 hectares of its land. The news report equated this loss to about 2,000 tonnes of food like swedes, strawberries, and potatoes.
The company’s managing director Liam Stewart said they experienced a low yield last year because of low rainfall, then had to delay planting in the spring because the ground was too wet. He added that the cost of growing crops now was so high and made selling them difficult.
Scottish government rural affairs secretary, Mairi Gougeon, said that the rainfall over Scotland has been extreme, affecting many communities and businesses. He further said that efforts were underway to engage with the sector to determine how much they have been affected and what the implications of that are.
Analysts say the extreme rainfall is a reminder of the challenges that farmers face in the face of climate change. They emphasize that it is important for the Scottish government to work with the sector with a view to finding ways to support farmers and build resilience to future extreme weather events.
