Bad weather takes toll on Europe’s processed veg crops

Processors and farmers face severe losses in the major European growing area for several crops but especially for peas and carrots, reports Profel, the European Association of Fruit and Vegetable Processing Industries.

France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK and Denmark are heavily affected due to the prolonged unfavourable weather conditions, heavy rains and hail during late May, throughout June and in early July, the association said in a July 8 press release.

It said this year’s crop situation is the worst of the last 40 years, with rainfall records for June broken in several of these countries: Belgium, the UK, France and (the south- east) of the Netherlands.

“Growers, together with processors, are unable to give any volume-indications at this stage as the bad weather continues and field yields continue to decrease. For peas and carrots it is clear that a significant part of the crop has been totally lost.

“The sowing of green beans has been dramatically delayed, with 80% of the volume that should already be in the ground at this time, still waiting to be sown. Both farmers and processors are doing their utmost to fix the expected volume-losses, but the situation looks very grim.

“The reason for this extraordinary delay in sowing is because farmers’ machinery cannot travel on the water logged fields, and because the soil structure has been destroyed during the harvesting of early summer crops.

“Information on expected crop volumes will be made available when the situation becomes clearer,” it said.

Profel (Europe) is the European Association of Fruit and Vegetable Processing Industries (canned vegetables, frozen vegetables, dehydrated vegetables, jams and fruit preserves, frozen fruit and canned fruit and compotes), representing over 500 companies in 13 EU countries.