The review calls for future productivity funding for the horticulture sector offering ‘investment opportunities in productivity improvement across the entire sector, covering both individual businesses and Producer Organisations’.
This follows Farming Minister Dame Angela Eagles’s comments to the Efra Committee just a few days earlier which reaffirmed funding under the legacy Fruit and Veg Aid scheme will come to an end this year but failed to offer any commitment to a replacement scheme.
NFU Horticulture and Potatoes Board Chair Martin Emmett said that “while growers in the EU and devolved UK nations will continue receiving this crucial support, those in England now risk being left behind”.
“In a letter to the previous Farming Minister Daniel Zeichner, earlier this year, I said fruit and vegetable growers stood ready to be at the heart of delivering many of the government's priorities.”
NFU Horticulture and Potatoes Board Chair Martin Emmett
“The NFU has long been calling for a new scheme, and for this to be expanded to cover all sectors of horticulture, including individual businesses as well as producer organisations.”
Match words with action
Defra’s initial response to the farm profitability review included the announcement of a new Farming and Food Partnership Board, to ‘drive growth, productivity and long-term profitability across the sector’, with initial work to include developing a tailored growth plan for the horticulture sector, but it is still uncertain whether any new funding will be made available to support productivity across the sector.
Martin Emmett said: “We welcome the focus on horticulture for the new partnership Board, but the government’s lines on future productivity funding for the sector have been in a holding pattern for several years, driving up uncertainty and freezing investment.
“The long-standing Fruit and Vegetable Aid Scheme is now ending; grower confidence is at an all-time low – made worse by this summer’s extreme dry conditions – and self-sufficiency in fruit and veg continues to slowly decline. There is strong appetite from growers to expand production – if the government is serious about its health and food ambitions it must match words with action.
“In a letter to the previous Farming Minister Daniel Zeichner, earlier this year, I said fruit and vegetable growers stood ready to be at the heart of delivering many of the government's priorities under its Plan for Change missions.”
Businesses left vulnerable
In his letter, Martin outlined how the current Fruit and Veg Aid scheme has delivered "significant yield, quality and volume gains, as well as enabling some sectors to lengthen the UK season", adding that the first 20 years of the scheme saw strawberry yields double.
He warned that without any further funding, some producer organisations may be forced to close, leaving businesses, especially smaller ones, vulnerable to the market.
The NFU also previously wrote to the Health Secretary earlier this year in support of delivering the government's 10 year health plan – backed by a reliable, affordable and healthy domestic supply of fresh produce.
