It seems as if a high proportion of growers worldwide are once again counting their costs. In this case, it is not so much a question of multiples screwing down prices, a lack of labour or strikes at the docks.
Rather it is the weather - a farmer’s favourite friend, and in times like these who needs enemies when you have friends like this?
The South African avocado industry is reassessing its marketable volumes. In Spain, the citrus industry is having problems and the Picota cherry crop was hammered by last-minute rains. This week, we hear that the elements have also taken a toll on English orchards. In Turkey, a prolonged heatwave is proving disastrous, while in Argentina, the temperature problems are at the other end of the mercury scale.
Now we see the first real, considered assessments from the UK’s onion and brassica industry after June’s incessant downpour. Not surprisingly, they point to a period of both feast and famine - but not necessarily in that order - until the arrival of autumn, and even beyond, for sprout growers.
Apart from the industry itself, and I include trade journalists, any news which pits producers against the elements usually creates an initial wave of public sympathy.
Even the laymen, despite the lip service paid to food miles and buying British, realise it must be heartbreaking to see someone’s livelihood reduced or destroyed either slowly by the persistence of nature or even overnight. The latter was instanced again this week by the reported foot of hail which singled out and stripped bare some top-fruit orchards in north Kent .
That, of course, is an extreme case. Although it is proportionately miniscule, it should never be forgotten that as far as individual growers are concerned, these events fall into the same category as other experiences felt on an industry-wide scale. When it happens to you, it feels the same as the historic frost damage in Florida - which I actually experienced in the 1980s - and worse tragedies such as loss of life during hurricanes, which wipe out entire banana industries in the Caribbean.
I believe that consumer memories are short and sympathy shortlived. Such is the plethora of alternatives now available, if there are gaps in any supply chain, shortages and commensurate price rises do not tend to last for long.
In this current climate, I’m sure the big retail battalions have charged their category suppliers with fulfilling their obligations elsewhere. And importers have become ever more adept at rising to the challenge.
In the past, such relatively brief shortages led to some extreme examples of procurement. There have been ware potatoes from New Zealand, cauliflower flown in at hours’ notice from California, and apples arriving from India and even Iran to plug gaps.
All importantly, programmes were met.
If history eventually records that in 2007 this was just a minor spasm as part of the progress of global warming, there could well be many more similar examples on the produce calendar, as such circumstances become more commonplace.
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