Scottish blueberry farmer donates entire crop to charity

Blairgowrie, UK - A Scottish farmer is giving away his entire crop of blueberries, worth £2mn, to charity, saying cheap imports and high labour costs have made harvesting the fruit economically unviable.

Peter Thomson has been growing blueberries at his farm in Blairgowrie, northeast Scotland, for more than four decades, producing 300 tonnes of fruit per year.

But now, he said, growers in Peru and South Africa can sell their berries in the UK at a far lower price, while a shortage

of pickers caused by Brexit has made the harvest unviable.

“They’ve started planting huge areas of blueberries in the subtropics like Peru and South

Africa,” said Thomson, who started growing blueberries in 1976.

“Their costs of production are so low that we can’t com

pete.” Normally, said Thomson, 200 workers would have picked around 300 tonnes of blueberries this year with 50 more working in the packhouse.

In 2014, the price paid to Scottish farmers for blueberries was £17.50 per kilogram, he said. Today however, supermarkets pay less than £7.

Labour costs meanwhile have risen from £7 an hour five years ago to £10.10 today, even

before state pension contributions and holiday pay are taken into account.

This meant that the value of crop of berries, which would once have been worth £3mn or more, fell to £2mn this year.

Retailers are unwilling to pay a premium for Scottish produce as shoppers target bargains during the cost-of-living squeeze, Thomson said.

The Brexit factor

The cheaper imports started last year after countries including Peru and South Africa, where pickers are paid substan

tially less, started using a new cultivar of the blueberry plant. The sweet juicy berries grow densely on bushes with scarlet leaves that are planted in rows. Blueberries usually require a frost before they flower, which meant farmers in Scotland had the market to themselves in September and October and could command a higher price.

The new cultivar, however, does not need a frost to thrive.

The new blueberry variety is also popular with supermarkets

as the fruit are larger and firmer and can be shipped - rather than airfreighted - to UK supermarkets over a number of weeks without spoiling.

Another economic impact has come from Brexit, which has pushed up the price of labour and made it difficult to find skilled pickers.

Before Brexit, said Thomson, the farm’s village of caravans was filled with skilled European

pickers.

They’ve started planting huge areas in the subtropics like Peru and South Africa. Their costs of production are so low that we can’t compete Peter Thomson