The total British berry fruit market is valued at £639m, with strawberries at £380m, raspberries £127m, blueberries £99m and blackberries £26m. The growers are obviously committed to maximise their output by continuous innovation and the application of new technologies, it is an important and lucrative industry. The countryside is a working landscape that helps to feed the nation but it is much more than that. Created by centuries of farming it plays a unique part in defining British culture, the countryside is also a place of recreation and contemplation which everyone has access to. A balance therefore needs to be struck between conserving it's intrinsic beauty and character whilst ensuring that it also plays it's part in feeding us as efficiently as possible. The planning application by Hugh Lowe farms raises the opportunity for necessary debate which explores the relationships between food security, agriculture, land use and environmental protection.

There are many good reasons for using polytunnels including the benefits of producing cheaper fruit over a longer season but their proponents also make questionable claims to justify their use.

POLYTUNNELS REDUCE IMPORTS

No they dont....

In their planning application HLF state:

'Polytunnels have also, importantly enabled UK growers to displace imported produce, as the figures for increased home production demontrated'

Home production may have increased but they haven't reduced imports. The UK food trade gap – the value of food imports compared to that for exports – has inexorably widened, as documented by the organisation Food from Britain (FFB). This decline in self sufficiency has coincided with the rise in polytunnel use so any argument that they are helping to reduce our overall depency on imports is misjudged. Figures produced by Defra Basic Horticultural Statistics 2008(Barling et al 2008) confirm this trend, in the ten year period between 1997 - 2007 UK ‘glass house’ (which includes polytunnels) soft fruit production grew by 224%, strawberry production alone grew by 125%. In the same period vegetable production fell by 24 % and orchard fruit by 19%.

This graph clearly show that as the consumption of home grown strawberries rose but so did imports, although they have both levelled off in recent years imports are still higher than they were ten years ago. What is really happening is that competition between home and foreign growers is producing higher quantities of soft fruit which is pushing down the price and stimulating the market for ever cheaper strawberries. Strawberries are now cheap as chips - all the supermarkets have knock down deals trying to shift them, prices are dropping and growers are are having to produce even more to maintain their profits, this is unsustainable. When will the strawberry bubble burst ? maybe the flattening we see on the graph coupled with the offers on supermarket shelves is an indication that it already is beginning to happen. The Economic report submitted by HLF in support of their application states that

'the main seson strawberry prices has remained almost static for the last 20 years during a period when inflation has been some 110%'

In practice strawberry prices are half the level they were ten years ago, is expanding into a contracting market a good business plan?

POLYTUNNELS REDUCE FOOD MILES

No they dont....

The HLF planning appliation states that their production provides:

'significant environmental benefits through, in particular, the reduction in the distance that fruit travels between producer and consumer':

As we have seen above the use of polytunnels has not reduced imports of soft fruit and the reduced production of other home grown fruit that that they have displaced inevitably means that imports of those will have risen.

But there are other considerations. Hugh Lowe Farms are one of the largest producers of soft fruit in the country - in July 2007 they were producing 160 tonnes of strawberries a week - big producers need big markets and their strawberries are available in supermarkets from Cumbria to Cornwall. An operation of this scale therefore inevitably produces a lot of food miles as the strawberries are drivena round the country. In addition, by virtue of their size HLF can reduce their costs by investing in the latest technology as well as enjoying the economies of scale which smaller producers across the country can't compete with. When these smaller growers go out of business, consumers can no longer buy locally and are locked into purchasing from distant suppliers.

It is government policy to reduce food imports(which these large scale strawberry operations fail to do) but also to promote the idea of ever more local food. By concentratng production in massive industrial plasticulture operations we are not only destroying the way our landscape is used and looks but also weakening local production economies.

POLYTUNNELS REDUCE C02 EMISSIONS

Highly Unlikely....

The HLF planning application quotes from a number of government policies:

'...not a choice between food production or the environment....

'the need for agriculture to be truly sustainable in reconciling these issues and planning policies need to help farmers to become more competitive, sustainable and environmentally friendly..'

'..development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs'

'...prudent use of natural resources'

In reponse to these the planning application simply states:

'makes the best use of natural resources, infrastructure and skills available at this farm whilst reducing the amount of chemical inputs and CO2 emissions'

Whilst the use of polytunnels may well reduce the amountof chemical inputs there is no evidence that industrial scale plasticulture reduces CO2 emissions, in fact when the carbon footprint of the entire operation is considered it may well be higher than when an equivalent quantity of top fruit was being cropped from these fields. In order to ascertain the Global Warming Potential(GWP) of a commodity a Life Cycle Assesment needs to be undertaken to calculate the amount of carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases emitted. This is a long and complex process but would need to take into account every stage of the production process.

Increasingly strawberries are being grown in irrigated grow bags on trestles in polytunnels. This is a highly industrialised system which has a considerable carbon footprint, the coir in the growbags is transported from southern India, the galvanised steel trestles and polytunnel frames are forged at high temperatures and have to be transported to the farm, the polythene coverings are made from oil and have to be replaced every few years. The irrigation system requires many kilometres of oil based plastic pipe, the construction of reservoirs used carbon fuel and do the pumps which shift millions of gallons of water every summer. Hundreds of pickers and farm labourers are flown in from Eastern Europe who pick into plastic punnets which are then chilled in massive refrigeration plants. In order to keep the pack houses viable in the winter time, they pack fruit imported from abroad. The toal energy consumption of tractors, lighting and heating industrial premises all needs to be taken into account. The amount of miles that the strawberries cover in lorries on their way to the consumer is only one, small component of the overall CO2 emmission.

The DEFRA Project FO0103 Comparative life-cycle assessment of food commodities examined the Global Warming Potential(GWP) of Spanish strawberries and their comparable British counterparts. They found that pre farm gate GWP of the Spansih produce was 60% less of UK although the transportation GWP was 10% greater and taking other considerations into account the report concluded that ‘ in terms of GWP imported strawberries from Spain appear to have similar burdens to domestic production’

HLF have not substantiated their claim that their operations help to reduce CO2 emmissions and in the light of the scale and industrialisation of the operation it is highly unlikely.

in addition to the polythene coverings over the tunnels, plastic covered beds are made in the ground into which the strawberries are planted. This mulch prevents weed growth and contains the moisture that is fed directly to the roots of the plants by an irrigation pipe.

After two or three years the tunnels are taken down and the plastic mulch removed from the soil. Unfortunately this is not a clean process and the sheeting cracks and splits leaving the field littered with scraps of plastic. This blows about and gets trapped in the field margins, hedgerows and surrounding countryside, this is unsightly and a potential danger to wildlife and livestock on neighbouring land. Black plastic bags are filled with gravel and used to hold down protective fleece or polythene sheets, many of these also escape collection and are trodden into the ground