‘The climate is in meltdown’ - Irish vegetable growers feel the heat

When Kenneth Keavey took over the family farm in the west of Ireland 18 years ago successive droughts were the last thing he ever thought he would have to contend with. Now for the last five years the Galway-based grower has had to resort to using a water tanker to irrigate the vegetables they grow for their business. He is one of just 200 vegetable growers in the country feeling the effects of climate change.

“The winters have just become a blurring of the seasons. Everyone will tell you we don’t see frosts any more,” he said. “In the summers there’s this level of just not getting any rain for ages and then getting these monsoon-like downpours.”

The recent extreme heat means that crops such as carrots have not germinated and will have to be resown, which pushes back the availability of home-grown crops to the customers he serves through his business Green Earth Organics.

Planning for the future now includes making sure that the size of vegetable beds can accommodate the water tanker as Mr Keavey expects more droughts in the coming years.

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Despite the impact on crop productions, he is keen to find Irish alternatives for his customers and is loath to have to import replacement stock from other countries unless absolutely necessary. “We have several other farms in Ireland that we source veg from,” he said. “But the weather is clearly having an impact on our food production.”

Mr Keavey’s 83-year-old father Michael still keeps a watchful eye on the family business but the current weather is not like anything he has seen before. The recent summer thunderstorms have made him especially concerned about what could lie ahead for vegetable producers.

On the other side of the country Co Wexford strawberry grower Cyril Wheelock is also battling the effect that climate change is having on his harvest.

“Before climate change you would know that you had about four weeks in the whole summer to get your harvest just right,” he said. “Now with the recent heat you can get a glut of strawberries in one go and it’s hard to pace them for the sales to shops and customers, and it is difficult to shift them when they come altogether.”

Another impact of the weather is the change in growing location. Nearly all commercial strawberries are grown in hip-high narrow chutes under polytunnels. This helps pickers but is also necessary to protect crops from the now regular summer deluges.

“You used to be able to grow strawberries in the field but now you hardly see anyone doing it and that’s due to a large part because of the weather,” he said. “There was one man who came to us who was trying to grow them outside but he arrived into us last Monday looking for replacements for the shop he was meant to supply because the torrential rain had just turned them into mush.”

Mr Wheelock explained that most people had boreholes to irrigate strawberry crops in polytunnels and that so far he had not heard of any wells drying up. “But there’s a long summer there yet and you would always be nervous,” he said with a note of caution.

Last year Met Éireann’s annual statement warned that the country would experience drier summers and more frequent droughts due to climate change. This prediction has held true with the country recently experiencing an “absolute drought” with more than 15 days of less than 0.2mm of rainfall.

Ireland’s vegetable and horticulture industry is not alone when it comes to experiencing drought conditions. More than a quarter of Europe is under a status orange drought warning, according to the European Drought Observatory.

Some countries have been suffering more severely than others; England’s National Drought Group has been issuing warnings over potential water shortages since May, while the Spanish government released a €2.2 billion drought package for farmers and consumers following their hottest and driest April on record. Some €784 million of the package was set aside to specifically help farmers and ensure the country does not suffer from food shortages.

Ireland is also facing its own potential shortages of home-grown vegetables, specifically potatoes, if another prolonged heatwave hits the country.

Speaking to The Irish Times, Shay Phelan, a crop specialist with the agri-food development agency Teagasc, warned that the extreme weather could impact crop availability.

“At the moment crops have been affected by a culmination of things; the spring was late and crops were late going in,” Mr Phelan said. “Potato crops in particular were a month late going in and that has been compounded by three weeks of drought so it has really put them on the back foot. The recent thundery showers also mean there’s an increased risk of blight.

“While it is early in the year it will altogether impact yield when it comes to harvesting later on. Supermarkets, to be fair, will try to buy Irish but even if they look to Europe for imports most of the Continent is suffering from the same challenges. It could drive up prices because of the shortfall.”

Most farms in the UK and Europe are now installing large-scale irrigation infrastructure but this is a non-runner in Ireland where many large scale growers rent land, which discourages them from investing in permanent infrastructure. “People are irrigating from rivers or boreholes but that can be quite haphazard,” Mr Phelan said.

But he insisted that it was not all “doom and gloom” as it was still relatively early in the season. “We need rain from here on in. Not constant rain but a potato crop, for example, would need at least 35mm of rain every week.”

Back in Galway Kenneth Keavey had his eye fixed further ahead and was less upbeat about the future.

“You would want to be blind not to see that the climate is in meltdown,” he said. “It’s inevitable that food production will be hit.”