Looks like we'll be one of the estimated 49% of fruit & veg farmers fearing they'll go out of business this year. Turns out trying to set up a market garden from scratch in the scottish highlands with no experience of running a self-employed business during some of the worst growing weather that anyone can remember was a bit of a tall order. Partner is sick of throwing good money after bad (albeit some of it from the bank of mum & dad) and can't say I disagree when all of the signs are pointing towards:
**CAPITALISM SAYS: NO, FUCK YOU**
Will be winding things down over the rest of the year and looking for a different position where we're not on the hook for absolutely everything and have some degree of income security. An education in what a nightmare it is trying to run your own business, if nothing else...
Anyway, you can sign the Soil Association's open letter at the link below fwiw, and support your local producers if you can. Remember you're still going to need to eat when the supermarket shelves are empty. A good idea to learn to grow your own too, or at least do some foraging if that's not an option.
The UK imports 80% of our fruit and nearly half our veg
We urgently need more home-grown fruit and veg, or we face disaster for supermarket shelves, our health, and the environment
Fruit and vegetables are the foundation of a healthy country. Yet right now, the UK’s growers are at breaking point.
Less than 2% of UK farmland is used for fruit and veg production, while nearly half of all growers fear they could go out of business within a year. Meanwhile, the UK imports over 80% of our fruit and nearly half of all our vegetables. This is simply unsustainable – we need to act now to boost home-grown fruit and veg.
Add your name today, and join a community determined to protect and grow UK fruit and veg
A perfect storm of rising costs, limited labour, unpredictable weather and low profit margins is threatening to put hundreds of our fruit and veg growers out of business.
What’s more, the UK’s heavy reliance on imports of fruit and veg is bad for our food security. Worldwide shocks, like the war in Ukraine and extreme weather patterns, show how a fragile globalised food system can easily lead to empty supermarket shelves.
This is also a profound crisis for our nation’s health. Only a third of UK adults are eating their recommended 5-a-day, falling to just 12% in children. That could have catastrophic effects on the long-term well-being of our country.
UK growers need to be supported to grow more fruit and veg using nature-friendly farming practices - like organic - without the fossil-fuel based fertilisers and pesticides that harm our wildlife and waterways.
We need urgent change
Fruit and veg production is the vital link between public health, food security and environmental sustainability. We're calling for urgent action from the UK government to help:
Double the percentage of UK land used to grow fruit and veg Increase demand for fruit and veg - starting with supporting schools to serve up healthy, veg-packed meals for children Increase fruit and veg production through nature-friendly practices - like organic - that will protect wildlife and nourish the soil
Join us in standing up for UK growers, and supporting a sustainable future for fruit and veg. The health of the country depends on it.
Research and References
'Fruit and veg production is the vital link between public health, food security and environmental sustainability. We're calling for urgent action from the UK government'
Soil Association, Sustain, Wildlife Trusts (2024): Home-grown: A roadmap to resilient fruit and vegetable production in England
'Nearly half of all growers fear they could go out of business within a year'
Riverford 2023: Get Fair About Farming campaign
'Meanwhile, the UK imports over 80% of our fruit and nearly half of all our vegetables.'
Defra 2022: Latest Horticulture Statistics
‘Worldwide shocks, like the war in Ukraine, show how a fragile globalised food system can easily lead to empty supermarket shelves.’
The Guardian (2023): Why are UK supermarkets facing fresh food shortages?
‘Only a third of UK adults are eating their recommended 5-a-day, falling to just 12% in children.’
Over the last 30 years the area of land used to grow vegetables in the UK has decreased by 26%. Meanwhile, we have become increasingly dependent on imported fruit and vegetables, and we now rely on on overseas imports for 43% of our veg supply, and over 80% of our fruit supply. Many of the countries that grow this produce, such as Spain and Morocco, are now becoming increasingly vulnerable to drought and poor harvests as a result of global warming.
If everyone in Britain were to eat the ‘7-a-day’ recommended by Public Health England, we would need an additional 2.4 million tonnes of fresh produce; an equivalent to a 66% increase in UK production compared to current levels. It’s obvious that a massive upscaling of domestic fruit and vegetable is therefore required, and we believe that small-scale agroecological farms and market gardens should have a significant role to play in this horticultural renaissance.
Latest news
At the Farm to Fork Summit (14th May 2024) the Prime Minister set out a “Blueprint for boosting the British Fruit and Vegetable Sector”. This included doubling the budget for the replacement Fruit and Vegetable Aid Scheme to £80 million. While little detail is provided about the new horticulture resilience and growth offer, it seems that Defra continue to be focused on high tech solutions, such as controlled environmental horticulture (CEH translated as glasshouses using combined heat and power, hydroponics, vertical farms etc), automated pack houses and genetic improvement networks. On the positive side, individual businesses, rather than just Producer Organisations (PO)*, will be able to access the new Horticulture Resilience and Growth offer, potentially opening the fund up to agroecological market gardens. LWA will be working hard over the coming months with other organisations representing agroecological growers to ensure that these announcements translate into support for our members.
To read the full policy paper on the Blueprint to boost the British Fruit and Vegetable Sector see here.
*The legacy F&V Aid scheme was only open to POs, which are groups of 5 or more horticultural businesses with a combined turnover of a minimum of £1 million and whose members are required to sell at least 75% of their produce through the PO. Hence, this scheme was inaccessible to agroecological growers, who tend to sell the bulk of their produce to local markets.
What are we doing?
Rather than increasing the scale of production on a few large farms, the Landworkers’ Alliance believes that a dramatic increase in the number of small scale, agroecological producers growing fruit and vegetables close to the point of sale would help address the issues whilst bringing numerous additional benefits.
To achieve this we have created documents outlining the numerous benefits of this approach and developed policy proposals that would help make this a reality. We are now working with Defra and our members to get these proposals developed into policy. Specific areas that we are working on include:
Growing the Goods – A horticulture test and trial for the new Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) to find ways to adequately incentivise and reward the delivery of public goods for both small and large scale growers. Fringe Farming – Promotion of peri-urban horticulture across five cities in the UK and advocacy for local and national policies that would better support fringe farming. LWA hosts a “peri-urban practitioners forum” which meets quarterly to share experience and best practice. Horticulture Across Four Nations – The LWA policy coordinators of England, Scotland and Wales meet regularly to support one another in the mission to build the capacity of growers in all the devolved nations. Food Zones Case Studies – Part of our horticultural vision for the UK is that most fruit and vegetables for every city would be supplied by a mixture of producers from urban, peri-urban, rural hinterland areas, supplemented by national and international produce. We are collecting case studies of where this is already happening, to help other cities develop their “food zones” supply systems. Horticulture Study Tours – Visiting both rural and peri-urban horticulture holdings is a powerful way to demonstrate to MPs and civil servants the benefits of agroecological horticulture. We organise one or two opportunities each year to get policy makers onto farms. FVA and AFVA – We are an active member of the Fruit and Vegetable Alliance (FVA) and sub-group the Agroecological FVA (AFVA), alongside other growers’ organisations. The FVA meets twice yearly, to enable growers organisations of all scales to collaborate on pushing for a horticulture strategy and share information. The AFVA meets monthly and is focussed during 2024 on lobbying to ensure that the revised Fruit and Vegetable Aid Scheme is accessible to agroecological growers. The LWA Horticulture Campaign Team meets quarterly with the Defra Horticulture Team to share information.
Read our latest report How can you help?
Explore our Horticulture Across Four Nations campaign toolkit (click ‘See the board’ below) for relevant resources and guides on how you can get involved in the campaign and be an advocate for small-scale horticulture.
The toolkit includes:
📗 A step-by-step guide for hosting MPs and local politicians on your market garden 📗 A Horticulture Across Four Nations Briefing Document, with key facts and figures, ‘how to answer tricky questions’, ‘debunking common myths’ and policy asks for all four UK nations.
Provide feedback on ‘Horticulture Across Four Nations’
The LWA hopes to build consensus around its vision for a market garden renaissance, bringing together our own members and people from other organisations. Our campaign document, Horticulture across Four Nations, was launched in January 2024 at ORFC, and we’d love to hear what you think of it. Please use this form to leave your feedback, so we can evolve the campaign to better meet the needs of the organic and agroecological growers we hope we represent. Tell your story; Ask a question; Interpret generously http://storybythethroat.wordpress.com/tell-ask-listen/
I'm sorry that your venture isn't going well. A taxi driver who grows her veg told us yesterday that the shite spring and late summer had undone her too, the plantings rotting in the ground. She said that her pea crop had survived but that was it.
There's an art to cutting losses that I learnt quite late in life and I don't envy your predicament. Fingers X for the future.
The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Commiserations, Ian. I'm gearing up towards a similar predicament...although I haven't started a business yet I started the veg garden last year and built a large polytunnel with the intention of growing most of our fruit and veg for me and my partner. It's a huge amount of work involved for something that is at the mercy of changing weather patterns. I managed to grow a fair amount but also had large failures (carrots, fennel, etc) and some things look like they'll never fruit at all because of the low temps (courgette, pumpkin, etc).
The government isn't interested in supporting small organic producers and definitely not in people living self-sufficiently. In the Republic of Ireland, I knew someone who got generous payments every week starting his own growing business and an offer of a part-time employee, but even he was burnt out after a few years and had to give it up.
Still, it's a noble enterprise to be engaged with (and definitely essential to grow your own in the coming years...valuable knowledge gained anyway!) and I hope you find something that works for you!
Keith said: 'the shite spring and late summer had undone her too, the plantings rotting in the ground. She said that her pea crop had survived but that was it' - funny, peas were one of the only things that have done reasonably well for us too. Other things survived but mostly just sat there waiting for sunshine and warmth that still hasn't really arrived. My partner's better at the cutting losses thing - I just put up with sh!t and adapt until I hit a crisis point and something has to give, not great. We're lucky in that we haven't invested too many thousands in the business such that sunk cost fallacy kicks in and we don't feel like we can leave. If you can call that luck... Lack of 100% do-or-die commitment has its plus points, but if it means you just bumble around from place to place and failure to failure, with the prospect of actually earning enough to live on receding ever further into the distance, then that's no good either.
Fionn said: 'It's a huge amount of work involved for something that is at the mercy of changing weather patterns [...] some things look like they'll never fruit at all because of the low temps (courgette, pumpkin, etc).' - yup, only got our first harvest of courgettes today, nearly a month later than last year and more like 2 months after they'd be ready down south. Undersowed the squash with green manure because I don't think they're going to produce anything at all this year. In growing it feels like you can cope with a few disasters per year as long as there's a big enough window of good weather that things can recover, but relentless cold, damp and dim conditions ruin everything. Especially since we're not field scale with tractors etc, thus relying on being able to get multiple crops per season from the bed space.
'The government isn't interested in supporting small organic producers and definitely not in people living self-sufficiently.' - agreed, I'll eat my hat if the red tories prove any more supportive of small farmers than the blue ones were. And forget about them aiding self-sufficiency: government exists to undermine that and get people dependent on the market economy to supply their needs. One Planet Development in Wales seemed to be set up to only allow hyper-educated people a fighting chance, with the application process requiring PhD levels of form-filling. And of course, people who have reached that level of education only manage to do so by neglecting physical, practical skills which are precisely what you need to meet the goal of 60% self-reliance for all goods within 5 years.
John said: 'If there is one thing that should be supported, it is the growing of essential foods.' - yes, although unfortunately the nature of the sector, especially in organic or small scale, is that growers gravitate towards the crops that pay the most - mixed salad, herbs, soft fruit etc rather than the staples that would actually supply bulk calories for the basis of a healthy diet. Hence the perception of organic as middle class virtue signalling priced beyond the ability of most people to pay on a regular basis. The suggestion of subsidised food for schools would be a good way to democratise this, though it would require a lot of changes to how school meals are produced, re-skilling of staff, flexibility of menus, better cooking facilities etc. But that relies on govt doing something sensible for a change instead of merely managing wealth flows to the biggest donors and servicing the requirements of corporations first & foremost.
In short I'm not seeing a way out of this through the 'normal' channels, and there has to come a point where people go on the offensive and take what we need rather than lamely petitioning to be given the various vanishing pittances & crumbs the overlords deem acceptable. That will look like land occupations, autonomous village-scale communities with people coming together to provide directly for their own needs and leaving the broken society behind forever. It doesn't matter if something doesn't work as a business as long as it can work for a community. Really, the two goals are probably mutually exclusive.
Posted by johnlilburne on July 30, 2024, 9:48 pm, in reply to "Thanks guys"
forget about them aiding self-sufficiency: government exists to undermine that and get people dependent on the market economy to supply their needs.
Too true.
That will look like land occupations, autonomous village-scale communities with people coming together to provide directly for their own needs and leaving the broken society behind forever.
Unlikely to happen until during or after the 'collapse', if at all. Unfortunately.
Re: Thanks guys
Posted by Ian M on July 30, 2024, 11:33 pm, in reply to "Re: Thanks guys"
'Unlikely to happen until during or after the 'collapse', if at all. Unfortunately.' - I'd agree that it's unlikely to succeed until the dominant culture is well on its way down and no longer able to destroy those efforts. Another way to look at it is that a move back to that kind of subsistence economy is precisely what collapse is all about, per the Tainter analysis anyway*, ie: a reduction in societal complexity when the previous high levels of complexity can no longer be sustained due to diminishing returns. Eventually it could well be a factor that precipitates collapse, if enough people defect from the system that it no longer has a big enough tax base or pool of wage slaves. But I'm starting to think that we're going to have to make it happen rather than waiting for accidents of history to shove us in that direction.
Some related thoughts in the context of Scotland and the concept of 'opening the map': https://tinyurl.com/55zcfhn2 Also, obligatory reminder that this isn't a new idea:
Posted by johnlilburne on July 31, 2024, 1:00 am, in reply to "Re: Thanks guys"
Interesting you should post a link to World Turned Upside Down. I've just finished reading Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century by Geoffrey Parker.
The C17th experienced the Little Ice Age when average global temperatures were on average colder than they are now due to a combination of lower sunspot activity, more volcanic eruptions and changes in El Nino activity and so on.
This led to more extreme weather events deleteriously affecting harvests leading to famines and disease and so on. These effects were exacerbated by rulers continuing wars over territory and thus adding burdens of taxation and conscription on their populations. Populations declined markedly and took some time to recover.
Of course, there were differential effects globally, with Germany (30 Yrs War) particularly badly affected but Tokugawa Japan less affected due to its isolation.
The coming 'collapse' is likewise also going to affect countries and regions differentially, partly dependent on the resilience and cohesiveness of their societies.
According to Jem Bendell in Breaking Together collapse has already started across several sectors (eg, climate change, global food security, energy security etc). It's just that many of those in the privileged world are not aware of it yet.
Migration could be one symptom.
Bendell doesn't mention wars. Unlike the dynastic and territorial wars of C17th, present wars (Gaza, Ukraine) are about unipolarity vs multipolarity (and, of course, competition for diminishing resources).
As I said, the key to survival depends on the cohesiveness and resilience of societies, as well as individual resilience.
Many societies today seem divided amongst themselves. As collapse accentuates, these societies will find it hard to survive, let alone thrive, as humanity moves into a radically different world.
Re: Thanks guys
Posted by Ian M on July 31, 2024, 6:49 pm, in reply to "Re: Thanks guys"
Good points as always John, thanks. I haven't looked into the effects of the little ice age much, so that seems like a good book to read. Farmers must have been complaining something fierce! XR types like Hallam and Bendell have stressed the fragility of agriculture entering the hotter climate, using the chilling phrase 'multiple breadbasket failure'. Hallam in particular has personal experience of this being himself a veg farmer in Wales before a few bad seasons convinced him that activism was more important. You probably know...
Anyway, I'm getting a more direct sense of that this year than I have previously. Generally I've thought that if you grow enough crops something will always do well even if everything else is a flop. But this year... well, if we were totally self reliant we'd be starving - a sobering thought! The highlanders were probably smart to concentrate on cattle and dairy, with oats, barley and 'bere' (a locally adapted variety of barley) supplying the carbs until the potato came along. But famine is a part of the agricultural experience, being dependent on a small handful of domesticated crops with ruin if they fail. The last time it happened in Scotland with the failure of potatoes in the 1840s & 50s elites exploited the situation to clear people off the land, sponsoring emigration to the colonies and insisting that 'lazy', 'indolent' highlanders turn to industrial modes of production in the lowlands or cities, their homes, farms & shielings to be torn down and replaced by sheep or deer stalking - more profitable enterprises better able to pay high rents.
So, all the factors play into eachother, and yes it's likely to be incredibly messy, with social cohesiveness a big part of how things play out as you describe. Luckily everyone in this country is firmly on the same page and not at all split up into multiple ideological factions already at eachother's throats before collapse has even got underway (!)
on July 30, 2024, 12:13 am