Children celebrate as weather ruins pea production

VEGETABLE-hating children across Ireland are rejoicing as they’re set to see less and less peas on their dinner plate.

This comes as recent weather plays havoc with pea crop yields – prompting fears that the price of frozen peas will soar.

The hot weather over the last couple of weeks, followed by torrential downpours, has resulted in a dire pea harvest this year – sparking concerns that there could be a shortage of the vegetable on the way.

And it is expected that shoppers will be hit with price increases for peas due to an expected scarcity of the popular vegetable. General Manager of Birds Eye UK and Ireland Andy Weston-Webb said: ‘With peas the weather has to be just right for the perfect harvest. Last year was too wet and cold. This year has been better, but if the heat-wave continues it could hurt the harvest of our peas as well as other crops.’

Birds Eye sources the peas sold in Ireland predominantly from Yorkshire, which has had scorching temperatures for weeks.

Mr Weston-Webb added: ‘The extreme weather of recent years has made it more difficult for companies like ours.

‘Freezing our peas within two and half hours of picking is a complex operation; it’s made harder by more extreme weather.’

‘Our expert teams work 24 hours a day at this time of year, even in this heat, to make sure our peas are frozen within two and a half hours of being picked.’

Growers said that pea crops are relatively ‘delicate’ and as a result are easily damaged by the wrong conditions.

Suppliers in the UK told how they’re importing peas from as far away as Guatemala as growers battle to meet demand. The Irish Farmers Association’s (IFA) vegetable committee chairman Matt Foley said Ireland’s weather would affect pea crops.

He said: ‘It is the combination of an extraordinary late spring and a cold wet winter that made the ground very poor for planting and now exceptionally hot weather and heavy rain. In April and May the peas would have been flowering but then come June they were hit with this very hot weather that would have had a negative effect on the crop – the quality of pollination would have been poor.’