Further bad weather has hit Scottish potato growers in the past week, with fears of mass shortages over the winter season.
One producer told FPJ that the “whole supply chain is in crisis,” with low light levels and heavy flooding resulting in low yield and high crop losses north of the border.
Another producer, Albert Bartlett, said its Scottish crop is 25 per cent lower than last year. “It really has been one of the most difficult harvesting systems in recent decades,” said Gillian Kynoch, development and innovation director.
Kynoch revealed that the Scottish-based supplier has lowered its appearance specifications with supermarkets after waterlogging resulted in smaller sizes and heavy defects on varieties such as Roosters.
The situation is similar at Branston, and field director David Nelson admitted that “Scottish potato growers will now struggle to fulfil contracts,” with Branston’s volume expected to be down 20 per cent for the winter harvest.
“There was 130 millimetres of rain in the south-west of Scotland over the last fortnight and growers are finding it hard to get into waterlogged fields; I fear we may have to import much earlier than usual,” revealed Nelson.
Allan Stevenson, chairman of the Potato Council and a major grower in East Lothian, described the fulfilment of contracts from Scottish potato growers as “the biggest issue in potatoes at the current time”.
He concluded: “Farmers and packers who are contracted to supply the fresh market are getting hammered just now, and many are losing a lot of money; retailers are just not passing the money down the chain and it is the same story as what is happening in the milk and pig sectors.”
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