More understanding is required on the part of the retailers in terms of the risks and challenges taken by fruit and vegetable growers, Teagasc director Frank O’Mara has said.

Retailers should work with growers to accommodate the “vagaries of climate” and be able to adjust fruit and vegetable specifications and requirements where possible, he told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture last week.

“We have seen many instances where weather, market gluts and sudden changes in market dynamics can lead to increased loss. One-year supply arrangements are precarious for primary producers.

“Proper forecasting and long-term collaborative arrangements between producers, consolidators and retailers are needed to minimise loss and waste and maximise economic and environmental efficiency,” he maintained.

Indigenous support

He went on to say that supporting and expanding the Irish horticulture sector must be prioritised as the traditional international supply of fruit and vegetables is contracting due to climate change.

“The fruit and vegetable sector chiefly supplies the domestic market delivering positive societal impacts – in this case, healthy food with low environmental footprint as well as the economic benefits.

“Retailers and consolidators import very significant quantities of fruit and vegetables from regions of the world, some of which have come under considerable climate change pressure in recent times,” he argued.

In recent years, input price inflation in the horticulture sector in Ireland has accelerated rapidly, he said.

The inflation, O’Mara added, had its roots in Brexit, the pandemic, and more recently the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“Output prices did not keep pace with input price inflation and a significant number of primary producers in the vegetable sector and other sectors have ceased trading.

“A more recent phenomenon is that while growers have exited, other growers have not taken up the acreage, and the respective crop areas have been lost,” he said.

Teagasc estimates that the area of field vegetable production is down by 7% in 2023 based on direct engagement with growers.