The weather last month was not kind to Irish growers, in fact it was the wettest March on record with 140mm of rain falling, the average for March is just 25-30mm.

“All of our crops will be late,” said Stephen McCormack from McCormack Family Farms. “We have not been able to sow anything since 28th February, so we will not hit full production until the end of May, a month later than normal.”

Conditions in February were good so Stephen took a chance and got some salad crop in the ground, he will harvest this next week, but there will be a gap before the main crop comes on. There has now been five days of dry weather and at this time of the year the ground dries our quickly, so sowing is getting done now, but rain is forecast again for next week.

“All Irish growers are in the same situation, there will be shortages when the Spanish season stops, we will all be looking elsewhere for supply.

“It seems to all about extremes nowadays, last year we were in drought, now too much rain and in a few months, I’ll be complaining it’s too dry again.”

McCormack is the only grower of Irish basil, Stephen started growing it a couple of years ago, just half a hectare in a glasshouse, this year he will plant three hectares. The basil is just being planted as the greenhouses are not heated, full production will be in mid-June with around 3 tonne a week.

“Our Basil has been very successful; we would normally have imported it from Kenya. It has become so expensive to import now as transport has gone through the roof. We are now growing other herbs that we used to import because without the basil it is too expensive to bring smaller loads in.

The initial disruption of Brexit has calmed down now, and McCormack imports everything directly from Holland or France so there is no need for complicated paperwork.

“Before Brexit it was much easier to import from the UK, we could get produce same day and smaller volumes on mixed pallets. It now takes two days to come from Holland. It is a shame as we consider the UK our nearest neighbour and it must have hit the traders in the London markets hard as all Irish importers now order directly from Europe.”

Source - https://www.freshplaza.com