“I hate coming down here” – that’s the honest opinion of one strawberry grower in Carlingford, Co. Louth when he looks at what is left of one of his polytunnels after a particularly vicious bout of bad weather earlier this year.
While it may be the traditional season in Ireland to enjoy locally-grown strawberries, for many like Gearóid O’Neill, this year has been anything but traditional and the summer is continuing in much the same vein.
Like many farmers and growers, he is still battling, on a daily basis, the destructive aftermath of a series of storms in Ireland earlier this year.
Although storms have now passed for O’Neill he told Agriland that he is continuing to battle their impact on both his crops and his business.
“Things have been very tough with the weather, particularly the wind and the rain,” he explained.
“We should be cropping here at the moment, but the tunnel, which is only three-years-old, has been completely decimated. That’s only the wind side of things.”
O’Neill added that persistent rainfall has plagued the area for almost a year.
“To have six days in a row without rain in Ireland, you’d have to go back to July 2023.
“Rain affects strawberry growing and horticulture in numerous ways – poor sales, poor crop, and additional disease issues due to low light levels,” he said.
O’Neill also highlighted the financial fallout from bad weather and the changing weather patterns this summer.
“This tunnel basically has to be reconstructed, and the one beside it needs to be reclad. You’re looking at tens of thousands of euro,” he continued.
“Poor crops are harder to quantify, but yields are down by 10 to 20%.
“When the weather is poor, sales are down. It’s a glorious day today, but when you get a wet, windy week, nobody wants to eat strawberries and cream,” he said.
He is also critical about what he sees as the lack of government support for growers like him.
“There is absolutely nothing that the government has in place to assist with this sort of damage. Horticulture in general doesn’t tend to get support,” he continued.
“As weather patterns continue like this, something needs to be done for damage from these freak storms.
“Growers can’t continue producing food at a reasonable cost for the consumer without some form of assistance,” O’Neill added.
Bord Bia
Meanwhile sector manager for horticulture at Bord Bia, Lorcan Bourke said wet weather until May 2024 has had a “huge influence on delayed planting this year”.
“This will be another highly challenging growing year for all fresh fruit and vegetable growers with yield reductions predicted and shorter harvest seasons. Some increases in prices paid may compensate for losses of yields.
“Supermarkets have highly sophisticated international supply chains and will fill in any shortfalls in the Irish supply with crops from abroad,” he said.