'Cucumber capital' growers sell out as Brexit and energy crisis hit UK vegetable industry

Large areas of one of Britain's biggest salad growing centers will be replaced by housing estates as growers give up in desperation and cash in on their land.

The Lea Valley, also known as the cucumber and salad bowl capital of Britain, is one of the diamonds of the UK's struggling horticultural sector. The Lea Valley Growers Association (LVGA), based in an area that crosses Greater London, Essex and Hertfordshire, comprises over 180 hectares (450 acres) of greenhouses, managed by 80 growers. The valley should be a crown jewel for a country that cares about local industry and food security.

But hit by Brexit, a flawed plan by the Department of Interior for workers, and now rising energy prices, more than a third of growers have applied for planning permission to cut down 60 hectares of greenhouses to replace them with housing estates, warehouses and small factories . Their applications have been accepted.

"Without government support for UK food producers, the UK's largest greenhouse industry center could disappear within two next few years,” said Lee Stiles. , the secretary of the LVGA, "to be concreted by homes and industry.

"The association has 80 growers and 450 acres of greenhouses", he he said. "Twenty growers have permission to house, which is 100 acres, and another 10 have permission to develop their 50 acres for light industrial purposes."

The Lea Valley needs 2,200 workers a year, and businesses have been hit hard by Brexit. The Seasonal Worker Scheme set up by the Home Office and the Department for the Environment , Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which aimed to alleviate the problems, requires workers to return home after six months.

"This means that, in a season that lasts 10 or 11 months, producers have to recruit twice as many workers and train twice as many workers to do the same job," Stiles said. "Our producers s experienced a labor shortage of 40% this year. The government-imposed six-month rule means many growers end up with a completely different workforce than they started with, with some unable to complete the season due to a lack of workers.

"Forty of them, representing 200 acres, have not planted this year," Stiles said. "And another 10, who owned 60 acres, went out of business."

Among them were four growers who previously grew one in 20 lettuces consumed by UK households. They have completely stopped growing them for the past two years, while others who grew 100 million sweet peppers have been forced this season to cut their harvest in half. Seventy-four-year-old Elvio Cipullo and his 68-year-old wife Luigia started growing salad leaves, cucumbers and herbs 52 years ago, and now get up at 5:30 a.m. to try to make up for the lack of manpower. .

"They'll get on all fours to cut the parsley," says their son, Tony, 48, who now manages the 11 acres of seven greenhouses. "It's dirty work. But they know they have to do it.

"All the lettuce growers are selling their nurseries," Stiles said "There's no point in planting a crop if you're not sure you'll get the labor to pick it, because you'll just have it thrown away."

They were also harder hit than most industries by the huge rise in the price of gasoline, as they have to heat greenhouses. "The biggest input costs for growers were labor 'labour, followed by energy," Stiles said. "Now it's energy followed by labor. per therm in January at £4 per therm.

“In the 14 years I have been in this job this is the worst I have ever seen Ninety percent of our members are family businesses, traditionally employing 2,500 people. We only have one big company.

The result of the government programme, he said, has been fewer UK producers, job losses, more imported food, more food miles , an increased carbon footprint and greater climate damage. “EU horticulturalists receive state aid. Of course we don't get any money from the EU,” he said. "The UK has lost much of its market for salads and vegetables to growers in Spain and Morocco who don't need to use gas to heat greenhouses and who are only four days away from route from here."