Pea Crisis Looms As Drought Slashes British Harvest By Up To 30%

Farmers are warning of a potential shortage of British-grown peas in supermarket freezers this year, following prolonged periods of sunshine and dry weather that triggered the earliest pea harvest in 14 years.

According to the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), vining pea growers across Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and East Yorkshire have experienced a significant reduction in yield, with up to 30% fewer peas picked and processed compared with previous years.

One grower in Louth stated that he believed the drop in yield “could result in shortages”.

The decline follows a season of extreme weather. The Met Office reported that England experienced its driest spring in more than a century, followed by its warmest June on record. Some regions endured three successive heatwaves in June and July, leading to accelerated soil moisture loss and placing crops under severe stress.

Henry Moreton, regional NFU chair for Lincolnshire, explained the impact: “The east coast is your primary vining pea land. It's all good, well drained land that peas like to grow on. But it's not looking good at the moment. I've never known the viners go out so early. I really haven't.

“The British peas will be in short supply this year but, unless the rain does something really amazing or unless there's a really good end to the season, we are going to look at shortages.”

Stemgold Peas, based in Louth, works with 45 farms across Lincolnshire to grow peas across 3,500 acres (1,416.4 hectares). Operations manager Ian Watson said the business usually produces around 6,000 tonnes of peas annually, with 5,000 tonnes sold frozen and the rest tinned.

He confirmed that harvesting began unusually early this year, starting on 4 June instead of the typical mid-June schedule, and described ongoing challenges with dry, compacted soils that were “very difficult to work”.

“We're seeing very, very thin crops. They're not going to yield,” said Mr Watson. He added that the crops were so stressed by the weather that the number of peas in each pod had dropped dramatically—from up to 10 peas to just “two big round peas and the rest have shrivelled up and died”.

“In some instances, we're going to actually lose crops,” he said. “It's not just here. They're finding the same further south into Norfolk and east Suffolk. They're having an even worse time than we are.”

Mr Watson noted that while some rainfall had arrived, it was “too little, too late” and he remained concerned about a “shortage of UK-grown peas”.

Tom Screeton, senior agriculture fieldsman at Birds Eye, oversees pea production across East Yorkshire. Birds Eye works with more than 250 growers, typically harvesting around 35,000 tonnes of peas each year. He explained that the drought conditions had caused peas to mature faster than usual, outpacing harvesting capacity.

“We have a two-and-a-half-hour window to get these peas from being picked fresh in the field to being frozen at the end of the line in the factory. That process involves the harvesting, then haulage into the factory from up to 40 miles (64km) away, and then freezing when it gets to Hull.

“So the fact that whole process has moved so much more quickly has been quite a challenge.”

Michelle Lawrie, a quality manager at Birds Eye, oversees the condition of the harvested produce. During the season, she samples approximately 32 plates of peas each day.

“The sweetness depends on the weather. This year in particular we've had a lot of sun so the peas are very, very sweet this year – exceptionally so.”

Mr Screeton said the business was exploring long-term solutions to combat the impact of increasingly erratic weather, referencing last year’s delayed planting caused by a wet spring and a lengthened harvest due to slow crop maturation.

“I think going forward we can work on building more robust varieties as part of our breeding programme with more drought tolerant and stress resistant varieties.

“That's an ongoing process, but fundamentally with mother nature we're at the mercy of the elements and we just have to manage it as best we can.”

Source: BBC News