Trying to achieve ultimate horticultural efficiency and profitability has been the seemingly impossible goal of growers and economists alike.

Years ago on my travels I thought some small solution had been discovered - in Ethiopia surprisingly - which was showing massive promise exporting vegetable crops supported by a dairy making Parmesan cheese.

Ideally, the cows ate the surplus grade two vegetables and fertilised the fields for the next year as a way of saying thank you. The cheese was sold to Italy.

However, a balance was never achieved. Either there were not enough cows to do their stuff, because sales of peppers and aubergines were too variable due to demand or weather, or milk was poured away because there was too much cheese and the herd was too small.

Today, for those in the western world at least, horticulture is based largely on monoculture. Its participants link with their counterparts out of season to provide year-round programmes to keep the shelves filled.

Those that have survived have become fewer, larger and even more specialised, and have done so because they have not only been able to increase yields and find the right varieties for the public taste, but have been able to invest sufficiently for the future.

Most recently they have also had to contend with the further burden of not just being expected to only grow crops to the best of their ability, but fund a whole range of costly research, development and marketing as well as making a contribution to promotional activities to satisfy their retail customers.

As if this were not enough, today there is constant price pressure applied by fewer, larger supermarkets. It is not surprising therefore that margins are so thin that there have been reports that several sectors, most notably the glasshouse and top-fruit industries, are in danger of becoming static and are even showing signs of contracting.

Many grower/importers are now admitting that the UK is no longer their premier choice, while even if our consumers feel unhappy that their high streets are disintegrating, there are only limited local shopping alternatives.

While there has been a boom in farmers’ markets, the reality is that the sheer scale needed to effect any major transformation of shopping habits will be tough to attain.

This is simply because a large part of the population lives in cities, and still makes regular visits to the competition to buy not just fresh produce but the whole vast range of household requirements. If and when an adjudicator is appointed, this is the world that it will try to influence. One thing is certain: trying to assess what is reasonable, fair and acceptable business practice will be harder than ever.

Topics