Whose truth ?

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 that will seek to increase it's market share over it's main competitors in Spain and Morroco.

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 there are also some claims that require closer scrutiny.

Polytunnels reduce food miles, don't they ?

This is a statement often made by large scale growers who are seeking to reduce imports from Mediterranean countries. Food miles are important because transporting any commodity causes unwanted emmissions, but this is only a relatively small part of the overall carbon footprint of the produce which has to include the carbon emmissions caused by every stage of the production process.

There is currently a move towards increasing soft fruit productivity by growing them 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.

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. 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. By the time we add up the carbon footprint of the entire operation, coupled with the problems caused to local growers across the country the food miles argument looks less persuasive.

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’

Polytunnels help to reduce imported food ?

There is no doubt that polytunnels could help to reduce imported food and in the future they may well do, but at present the evidence is weak. In fact for many years, 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 hasn't particularly worried the governemt as both DEFRA and HM Treasury have long argued that, as a rich developed economy, the UK is in a strong position to buy sufficient food on world markets.

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 would seem to be 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%.

The production of traditional staple vegetables and fruit which form the basis of our everyday diet is in decline, being supplanted by fields of polytunnels containing intensive systems producing a luxury crop which is, conicidentally, far more lucrative for the growers.

Good for the the local economy ?

The local economy, like all economies, is a complex interaction between businesses and consumers. Hugh Lowe Farms has an annual turnover of £8m but it's impact on the local economy is not obvious or straightforward as much of this turnover is not, of course, spent locally. Although there are 34 full time staff who live in the area, all of the picking and most of the general farm labouring work is undertaken by temporary migrant labour, mainly from eastern Europe. Due to inequalities in wealth between east and west their earnings are worth far more back home than they are here, therefore most choose to spend as little as possible in the UK and there are regular bus trips from the farm to the local ASDA where the workers buy their weekly necessities as cheaply as they can. Very few ever visit local pubs or patronise other local business so the vast majority of the workers wage bill is exported, except for the small percentage that helps support Walmart. In addition to the salaries paid to local employees the farm does also use local contractors and service providers so a percentage of the turnover does return to the local economy.

However, as well as considering the positive effect we should not neglect the fact that the large scale polytunnel operation could also have a detrimental effecton the local economy. Tourism in particular is fourteen times more valuable to the locality than agriculture and there is already anecdotal evidence that people will visit the area less should the intrusion of polytunnels become too visible. West Peckham is very popular with walkers who use the two long distance footpaths and the accessible network of lesser paths that pass through a beautiful and varied landscape of woodland, farmland, orchards and the escarpment of the Greensand Ridge with it's extensive views to the High Weald. Over a period of time there is a real possibility of a cumalitive negative impact on pubs, restaurants, bed and breakfasts and other providers of services to walkers and tourists.

More thoughts

Watch this page for more thoughts and discussion in future weeks.....