Extreme Weather Drives UK Fruit And Veg Prices Up By Over A Third In Two Years

The price of key fruit and vegetable staples in the UK has surged by more than a third in just two years, as climate change-fuelled weather extremes – from droughts to floods – continue to wreak havoc on harvests both at home and abroad.

Lettuce has seen the steepest rise, with the retail price of a standard Iceberg variety increasing by 40% to 98p, driven by extreme heat during the 2022/23 growing season followed by relentless wet weather in 2023/24.

Carrots, one of the UK's most important crops, are not far behind. Prices have jumped 34%, now retailing at 83p per kg. Cucumber and pepper prices have also climbed, increasing by 27% and 20% respectively over the same period. The figures come from an analysis of the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) data by climate change charity Round Our Way.

“British farming has recently been on the front line of climate change with unpredictable extreme weather giving us the wettest 18 months since records began [from September 2022 to March 2024],” Rachel Hallos, vice-president of the National Farmers’ Union, told The i Paper. “This caused devastating floods, with farmland completely saturated and unusable and the yield and quality of many crops hugely impacted. Our island is in the firing line of more and more extreme weather.”

Yields have been hit across the board as increasingly erratic weather patterns reshape growing conditions. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) reports that England recorded its second-worst harvest on record last autumn, following unprecedented rainfall that left large areas of farmland waterlogged for months.

Research from the World Weather Attribution group of climate scientists confirms that climate change made those record-breaking rainfall events 10 times more likely, with stormy days seeing 20% heavier downpours.

“Climate change is making our weather here in the UK more extreme, and this is having a real impact on the crops we grow,” Gemma Plumb, meteorologist and Weather & Climate Lead for Weather Change, told The i Paper. “Rainfall is becoming more intense and this brings a greater risk of flooding and fields becoming waterlogged.”

Lettuce prices, in particular, have been hard hit due to the UK’s reliance on imports – in some months up to 90% of lettuces are brought in from overseas. Spain, the UK’s top lettuce supplier, has suffered its own share of hot, dry spells and flash flooding, compounding the supply issues.

But for many UK consumers and farmers, the biggest blow has been the impact on carrots. The UK typically grows 97% of the carrots it consumes – around 100 per person each year – making them a mainstay of domestic farming.

“The floods of winter 2023-24 led to our farm losing 15 per cent of our carrot crop – about 4,000 tonnes – and the drought of 2022-23 led to a 20 per cent yield reduction,” said Rodger Hobson, a carrot farmer in Yorkshire and chairman of the Carrot Association. “These kind of events significantly increase our production costs and necessitate expensive carrot imports from countries like Egypt, Israel and even China.”

Hobson, whose farm grows around 4% of the UK’s carrots, said his experience mirrors that of other growers. “Climate change has significantly impacted the UK weather in recent years – principally in terms of hotter drier summers and milder wetter winters – but also in terms of more extreme weather events – in particular high rainfall events,” he explained.

The challenges for carrot growers don’t end with water damage. Rising temperatures have caused more frequent instances of bolting – a survival response in which plants prematurely go to seed in reaction to extreme weather. While this may help ensure the plant’s future, it renders vegetables like carrots, lettuce, spinach, cabbage and leeks tough and inedible.

Carrots have been a staple of the British diet since at least medieval times, and were even mythologised during the Second World War for their supposed eyesight-boosting powers. But today’s climate is forcing farmers to re-evaluate long-established growing methods.

More recently, the weather has improved. March 2024 was the sunniest on record in England, and the sixth driest, thanks to prolonged high pressure. However, experts warn that these brief reprieves are unlikely to reverse the longer-term trend of volatility driven by climate change.

And according to Stephen Shields of Huntapac, a root vegetable grower near Preston and vice-chair of the NFU Horticulture Board, consumers shouldn’t expect prices to fall anytime soon.

“If you go back two years, we had extreme dry and then the last year we had extreme wet – crops sat in water from September all the way through to the start of the new season in June,” Shields told The i Paper. “But this year has been a kinder growing season – so touch wood, as long as we don’t get any extremes going forward, I think this season should be relatively calm.”

Asked whether this could mean cheaper carrots, Shields responded: “There is a general feeling that prices are where they need to be going forward. Field veg is a low-margin industry, and if we get a crop loss, it’s straight off our bottom line.”

He added: “We’ve had many years of tight margins, and as well as that, you’ve got the national living wage going up in April, you’ve got national insurance contributions and land inheritance tax payments going up.”

Sofie Jenkinson, co-director of Round Our Way, echoed these concerns, adding: “The price trend is clear. If harvests continue to be lumpy and we are forced to import more and more vegetables like carrots, we will continue to see higher prices.”

Source: The i Paper