Cucumber growers in the Lea Valley will delay planting this year’s crops until the end of February, or even later, in an effort to reduce their energy crops according to the Lea Valley Growers Association (LVGA).
LVGA secretary Lee Stiles told Hortidaily, “Normally, growers would be planting cucumbers in the greenhouses in early January. This year the majority will not plant until late February or early March, and some will wait until April. The season will run until September.
“Last year growers were only using the boilers to heat the greenhouse every other day from May onwards to save on costs, but this meant less CO2 in the greenhouse, which led to a drop in yields.”
This year the price of energy has fallen in line with global trends, with current prices around £1.70/therm compared to £6-8/them last year. However, this is still much higher than prices before the energy crisis, which were closer to 40p/therm. The industry is also waiting to see the full effects of the ending of the energy price cap in March
“10% of growers stopped growing last year, and the land is now proposed for housing or light industrial use,” continued Lee. “Since 1960, four or five growers stopped per year, and in 2021 and 2022, this number grew to ten per year. This has really impacted the area used to grow food and will seriously affect the country’s food security. We are seeing more and more imports not only from Spain and Holland but increasingly from Turkey, Morocco, and Egypt. Produce coming from these countries takes a week by road.
“This situation is across the board in the UK fresh produce sector, it is not just energy and labour costs which have gone up, all inputs costs have increased, with very little increase in the returns from the retailers.”