Cucumber growers won’t plant until late February or March

Growers this year will not be planting cucumbers in greenhouse before late February or March as compared to early January, stated a farmers’ body, citing energy and labour issues as the main reasons for the delay.

According to Lee Stiles, secretary of the Lea Valley Growers’ Association, due to higher energy costs, many growers will also stop growing the crop altogether.

“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.”

“10 per cent of growers stopped growing last year, and the land is now proposed for housing or light industrial use. Since 1960, four or five growers stopped per year, and in 2021 and 2022, this number grew to ten per year,” Stiles told Hortidaily.

“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.

Stiles added that the situation is similar across the board in the UK fresh produce sector- energy and labour costs have gone up, other input costs like fertilizers have increased, with “very little increase in the returns from the retailers”.

According to Lea, growers have never received any assistance from the government, and the policies on labour and costs must change, with more assistance being given to growers.

There has been an energy price cap imposed (£2.19 per therm) by the government, which started last October and will end in March, when it will be replaced by a 6 per cent discount.