Sunshine and UK shortages give hope to beleaguered growers

Sunshine and UK shortages give hope to beleaguered growers

Persistent rainfall over the winter and severe frosts when the Beast from the East hit the British Isles had a devastating effect on farmers, delaying planting of this year’s crops by about a month.

However, while the Island’s côtils are only yielding 12 to 16 per cent of the usual crop, farmers are expecting higher volumes from May to July.

William Church, marketing director of the Island’s largest potato grower, the Jersey Royal Company, says yields are so low it is almost pointless digging them.

Nonetheless, with new potatoes in such short supply in the UK, there is a demand for Jersey Royals.

‘Normally we would expect to get three to four tonnes per vergée from the côtils but the trend is very low and on average we are down to half a tonne per vergée,’ he said. ‘The quality also varies, depending on how hard they were hit by the frosts, with some yielding a poor crop and other côtils being a bit better.’

Fortunately, potatoes planted after the cold snap are doing well due to the recent warm weather and sunshine.

Mr Church said that with their main rivals in Cornwall and Suffolk being hit even harder by prolonged and severe frosts which missed Jersey, the Island’s growers were in discussion with major national retailers about filling the gap in supplies.

Both arable and dairy farmers have said the winter of 2017 and 2018 has been the worst they have experienced in more than 40 years.

Jersey Farmers Union president Peter Le Maistre said that while fields in low-lying areas were still waterlogged, he expected all potato land to be planted by the end of this week.

‘The last week’s good weather has made a huge difference for us and hopefully we are all going to have a few spuds to export from next week,’ he said.

‘Those that escaped the worst of the frost damage have started growing over the past week and they are coming along very nicely.’

The late arrival of spring means that at last Jersey cows can leave their winter quarters to graze outside – again about a month late because of the weather.

Local growers say it is too early to quantify the financial losses but in a good season the Jersey Royal crop is worth more than £30 million.

To boost demand for Jersey Royals, the £100,000 PR campaign funded by government and the industry is promoting the crop to national newspapers and television programmes – including ITV’s This Morning and BBC’s Saturday Kitchen – and food magazines.

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