Working together to help UK farmers

YES, we have bananas today – and we even have tomatoes. To be fair, I have managed to source both tomatoes and peppers from local suppliers throughout the recent fresh produce crisis, albeit smaller, less shiny but equally tasty versions of the normal supplies.

While supermarkets have started to drop customer limits on some fresh fruit and vegetables as supply issues start to ease, veg-gate has raised far more questions than how many ways it is possible to serve a turnip.

Not least, for me, is how much fruit and veg is discarded because it simply doesn’t pass the supermarkets’ stringent standards on size, shape and colour.

While some supermarkets have recently started selling less than perfect produce at a lower price – Morrisons ‘wonky veg’ is the perfect example – there are still those who will only stock produce that meets the buyer’s stringent standards. There is no place for diversity in the veg world – anything which doesn’t conform is straight in the bin.

Shoppers are also less than happy if a rotten tomato or a mouldy spud creeps into their shopping – they expect perfection – and they are stumping up the cost.

And that is why local produce is no longer an option in most of our shops.

Farmers can grow onions in Devon but they will not be as big as those which arrive on the ferry from France.

We can also grow delicious fruit in the Tamar Valley – but the strawberries might not be red enough.

We can also grow our own cabbages – but will they be the fancy varieties which Waitrose shoppers love to serve with their Sunday roast?

And that’s before we even get on to the topic of seasonality. Valentine’s Day falls in February, yet we still expect a supply of strawberries to soften up our loved ones.

Meanwhile, farming has become so regionalised in the UK that food miles remain inevitable.

Even those companies selling organic vegetable boxes, to those who can afford them, struggle to source all their produce locally.

And there simply isn’t enough produce currently being grown to meet the demand.

Yet surely something has to change?

The current supermarket shortages may have been caused by freakishly bad weather in Europe and Morocco. Yet the inability of UK farmers to compete with cheap (shiny) imported produce is a very old story.

Add to this the shortage of labour caused by Brexit and the cost of energy to heat and light greenhouses means they are unable to fill all the gaps.

Tom Bradshaw, deputy president of the NFU, has rightly said that our reliance on imported produce has left the UK vulnerable to “shock weather events”.

He says the UK has “hit a tipping point” and needs to “take command of the food we produce”.

That amounts to far more than Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey’s advice that we should eat more turnips.

It means a radical overhaul of how UK supermarkets and the Government work together to help UK farmers, while also benefitting from the environmental gains of self-sufficient production.

Isn’t that what Brexit was supposed to be all about?

‘There is no place for diversity in the veg world. Anything that doesn’t conform is straight in the bin’

Clare Ainsworth on Saturday

> Tomatoes and other fruit and veg have been in short supply recently