Crisps could become premium snacks as a lack of spuds drives up prices leaving supplies dwindling as potato crop shrivels due to hot conditions from multiple heatwaves
It is crunch time for Britain’s crisps – with the drought set to spark a shortage. The nation’s potato crop is shrivelling due to the hot, dry conditions of multiple heatwaves.
Crisps may become premium snacks due to a lack of spuds. There could be fewer on the shelves and those that do make it to Britain’s boozers may cost a packet.
Potato agronomist Kate Mayne, from Shropshire Domesday Book village Ruyton-XI-Towns, said farmers are under pressure as the lack of water will mean fewer are harvested and those that are may not be as high quality.
It comes as the Met Office said this summer is on course to the UK’s hottest ever. July in England and Wales has been the driest since records began in 1836.
Farmers nationwide have struggled to get water on crops and admitted they are facing huge losses.
Shropshire’s National Farmers’ Union county chair Kate, an expert in the specialist science dedicated to potato production and soil management, said groundwater supplies were not getting replenished and farms were struggling to irrigate.
“The farmers are trying to keep up with the demand that the crop would have to make sure that it grows but they’re really struggling to do that,” she added.
“It is because of the sheer intensity of the heat – the fact we have not had any rain for goodness know how long.”
She said due to peaks in temperature there are hours during the middle of the day when potatoes cannot grow.
“We expect as a consumer and the processors, like Walkers and McCain’s, for a certain size of potato,” she said.
“When we do import potatoes they tend to come from within Europe but they have suffered just as we have.”
Farmer Ben Savidge, from Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, said his potato yields were down by up to 50% because he does not have access to irrigation.
He said he had been having to use his water ‘efficiently’ and has started building a reservoir.
“We have got to certainly become more resilient as a farming industry because we’re having more and more years like this there’s no doubt,” he said.
“We are having more and more rainfall in the winter which needs to be better captured so we’ve put a lot of investment over the last 12 months.
“We have also built two smaller catchment ponds to capture that water.
“Then we will be pumping all of that up to a new purpose built reservoir which is going to double our current water storage.”