Vegetable woes
All vegetable seeds sold commercially in the UK must now be registered with agribody DEFRA, but in the ongoing confusion and uncertainty of Brexit, some older and heirloom varieties may have been forgo en.
“Most seed houses registered products in advance, but some smaller seed operations possibly didn’t because they thought someone else would or they thought it wouldn’t affect them,” said Andrew Tokely, Horticultural Director of Kings Seeds. “Items can still be added for a fee, but it must be commercially viable. Also, all UK varieties registered with the EU were removed on January 1, so if it’s not on their list, we can’t sell it to them. Again, they can be added, but it must be cost effective to do so and easy to import. Some items were not added, such as Heirloom tomatoes, which mainly come from the USA and are now difficult to import due to testing for particular diseases.”
Increasing scarcity of seed stocks is also triggering price hikes by some suppliers. “One raised prices between five and 25 per cent,” said GN contributor and Su ons New Product Development Manager, Rob Smith. “It remains to be seen whether retailers will absorb some or all of the costs or pass increases on to customers. Gardeners may have to pay more for some of their seeds in the future.”