I must admit to a certain fascination when it comes to the reasons behind the shifting patterns of horticultural production. The root cause, of course, is profitability. That is why the soft-fruit industry can shortly expect to experience a surge in the volume of English blueberries.

Although production of the berry in the UK is unlikely to ever reach the scale of supply offered from continental Europe, a combination of good prices, the classification of superfruit and a realisation that bushes can be grown in pots, have all done wonders for growers’ enthusiasm.

Maximising the eating quality of any crop also depends on other factors - climate and soil being the two main ones. The French express these two in one word - terroir, which roughly translates to locality, and have recognised their importance for generations, especially in the production of wines.

The concept now even applies to fruit, with the best example being the once ubiquitous Golden Delicious, which is no longer being planted in great swathes across the country. As an aside, it was intriguing that the same term - terroir - was used recently by Adrian Scripps’s farms in Kent when describing the company’s choice of orchard sites for Kanzi.

A similar pattern can be traced in our own potato industry now the sector has realised different varieties perform best on specific soils. Consumers, who a generation ago thought in terms of reds, whites, King Edward and Jersey Royal, are far more aware of the range available and that each is fit for different cooking purposes as well as offering a different taste and texture.

Had this realisation not filtered down to consumers, the reduction in volume of the UK potato crop over the years might have been still greater. The latest statistics from the British Potato Council clearly show that the national crop has shrunk in volume, in particular due to the onslaught of carbohydrate rivals rice and pasta.

Call it terroir or locality, it is only part of the equation. Vegetables and potatoes, in common with soft- and top-fruit crops have to be capable of meeting the competition in the supply calendar. When I recently saw sugar snap peas airfreighted in from China for sale in the UK, it made me realise how far the sourcing boundaries against which British producers push have stretched.

But hope springs eternal, particularly in the fresh produce industry, and perhaps it may be sustained in a similar manner by the growing demand for biofuels. I am indebted to Kent grower Rex Boucher, who passed on news from across the Atlantic that US agriculture as a whole is on what forecasters call “a hot streak”, which is expected to continue.

The increasing demand for biofuels already means that between 20 and 30 per cent of both US grain and soya beans will flow into this new market, in turn reducing acreage serving the food sector. The result could be upward pressure on prices to producers, and the temptation for horticulturists with land suitable for arable production to switch crops.

It may seem far-fetched to envisage UK growers becoming more interested in the price of crude oil than whether the grade-out on their fruit and vegetables meets supermarket specification, but just this week UK students were reportedly distilling cheaper bio-alternatives to diesel to run a car.

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