Adrian Barlow, chief executive of English Apples & Pears is not against the principle behind Bifga’s vision for the future of English top fruit (FPJ last week), but saysl that the realities of the UK and global marketplace need to be taken into account.
“Anything that is going to result in increasing volumes of high quality English apples being purchased, or demand for English top-fruit rising is to be welcomed,” he said. “But we must remember that the backdrop to this is 15 years of huge reductions in production volumes of English apples.
“The reason that has occurred was not lack of demand for the product, but simply that many English growers were unable to achieve adequate returns to continue in the business.
“On a positive note, we do have a tremendous product. But we have to be competitive. There are a huge number of British industries that have disappeared from the map completely - but not apples.”
From that the industry should take heart. “However, we have to be realistic,” said Barlow. “We are very aware of the fact that we are producing fruit on the northern extremes of the world apple-growing area. Yields are not that good, but we do produce fruit with fantastic flavour. We need premium prices to compensate for reduced production levels per hectare.”
English growers remain vulnerable against competition from all around the world, Barlow added. “On a global scale, we are looking at over-production. In 1990, there were 40 million tonnes of apples grown worldwide, we are at 60mt today and by 2010 the predictions are that will have risen to 70mt.
“We live in a democracy and a competitive society and the culture in a free market is that prices will be low rather than high. I can’t see how that situation is going to change,” he said.
“The best growers are consistently making money in the UK, in good and bad times. Some growers are not, and when it is analysed there are a number of basic things that they are just not doing.”
No comments yet