UK vegetable shortages could be 'tip of the iceberg', says farm union

Shortages of some fresh fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes and cucumbers could be the "tip of the iceberg", the National Farmers Union (NFU) has said.< /p>

Some products are hard to find in UK supermarkets due to bad weather reducing the harvest in Europe and North Africa, Brexit rules and dwindling supplies UK and Dutch growers hit by rising energy bills for heating greenhouses.

NFU Vice President Tom Bradshaw said reliance on imports had left the UK particularly exposed to "weather shocks".

He said the UK had now "reached a tipping point and had to "take control of the food we produce" amid "volatility in the world." nde" caused by war in Europe and the climate crisis.

"We've been warning about this moment for a year," Bradshaw told Times Radio on Saturday. "The tragic events in Ukraine have pushed inflation, especially energy inflation, to levels we have never seen before.

"There is a lack of confidence on the part of growers that they are going to get the yields that justify planting their greenhouses, and at the moment we have a lot of greenhouses that would grow tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, eggplants that are empty because that they just couldn't take the risk to plant them with the crops, not thinking that they would get the benefits of the market.

"And with them being completely dependent imports - we would still have imports - but we have been completely dependent on imports [now]. And when there were shock weather events in Morocco and Spain, that means we had these shortages. richLink" data-spacefinder-type="model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement" class="dcr-11ra563"/>

Bradshaw also acknowledged that the current shortage was the indirect result of the decision to leave the EU.

He added: "It's really interesting that before Brexit we were sourcing no, or very little, from Morocco, but we were forced to go further and now these increasingly frequent climatic shocks have had a real impact on the food available on our shelves today. and Morrisons by introducing customer limits on some fresh produce as shortages left supermarket shelves bare.

Tesco and Aldi are limiting customers to three units of tomatoes , peppers and cucumbers as a precaution, while Asda is also limiting customers on lettuce, salad bags, broccoli, cauliflower and raspberries.

Meanwhile, Morrisons has set a limit of two items per customer among tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and peppers.

This comes as the shortage of tomatoes in UK supermarkets has spread to other fruit and vegetables due to a combination of bad weather and transport issues.

The Environment Secretary , Therese Coffey, caused an uproar after she suggested people 'treat' seasonal foods like turnips amid the bad weather. mps was emptying supermarket shelves of tomatoes and other fresh produce.

She told MPs: "A lot of people would be eating turnips right now rather than necessarily thinking to lettuce, tomato and other aspects.

"But I realize that consumers want year-round choice and that's what our supermarkets, food producers and growers around the world are trying to do. to satisfy."

However, there have been reports of a shortage of turnips since the environment secretary's comments.

As Waitrose reportedly stopped selling the root vegetable, shoppers at Sainsbury's complained of a lack of turnips in their stores.