One of the wettest Augusts since records begun has wreaked havoc on the Irish potato crop, with tubers rotting in fields submerged by monsoon-like downpours.
Because of the conditions, growers have been able to work for only two or three days in the month, while many have seen much of their early crop washed away.
Now the Irish Farmers’ Association is likely to seek some financial support from government for those hardest hit, but with the Irish economy already under pressure and public expenditure being slashed, the prospects of a relief package are slim.
Laurence Flynn, who has 160 acres under potatoes in north Dublin and whose family has been in the business for generations, cannot remember worse conditions. “There’s an awful lot of damage, an awful lot of rot,” he said. “We lost three weeks of sales and missed our slot for the early market because of the weather. Yields are also badly affected.”
Flynn had recruited nine Latvian workers to help with the harvesting. “They had to be housed, fed and paid even though we had no work for them because of the conditions,” he said.
When a break in the weather did come, harvesting proved difficult because of the saturated ground. Although he was using a harvester with tracks, the grading process was slowed from eight tonnes per hour to two because of the heavy amounts of soil sticking to the crop.
Crops grown near river banks and in low-lying fields were worst affected. In County Meath, grower Thomas Carpenter lost 10a of potatoes in fields submerged by several feet of floodwater. He recalls grimly how 56mm of rain fell on his crop in a single morning, with nearly an inch falling in less than half an hour.
Even potatoes in fields that have not been flooded are at risk, according to Carpenter. “Potatoes need oxygen to grow, but with so much water they don’t get enough, so growth stops. Overall, it’s been a disaster for growers,” he said.
Some 25,000a of potatoes are grown in the republic, with counties Meath, Louth and north Dublin accounting for over half of that volume. Matt Molloy of Teagasc, the farm research and advisory service, estimates yields will be down this year by 30-35 per cent because of the flooding. “Harvesting and storage are going to be particularly difficult,” he said, while predicting that market shortages should mean higher prices for growers - if they succeed in getting their crop out of the ground.
The unseasonal weather has also taken a toll on soft fruit, with Wexford strawberry producer James Kearns reporting “serious losses through mould”. Kearns, who has more than 500,000 plants on 40a, claims he has been battling since mid-July to save as much as possible of the crop, and that “for every punnet of strawberries we get, we’re losing two”.
But Teagasc adviser Eamon Keogh was less pessimistic. The quality of this year’s crop was very high, he said, and most of it was well protected from the weather. “Growers have invested heavily in glass and tunnels,” he added, “simply because the crop is so valuable they cannot afford not to.”
