Significant opportunities predicted for Fruit and Vines

The sector mood was buoyant for the UK fruit and vines sectors at this year’s Fruit Focus Event held at East Malling Research which attracted 1200 visitors.

Speaking in the NFU and Syngenta Bioline Forums, Professor Ian Crute, Chief Scientist at AHDB, described “significant opportunities” for fruit production and innovation even in the event of climatic shifts to a warmer northern Europe. He suggested that the trends for the sector were very positive and that the levels of entrepreneurialism and technical progress being demonstrated by the sector lent themselves to continued growth.

However his optimism was tempered by a sense of urgency for investment into science and expertise. “The UK’s knowledge environment and expertise has been eroded over the last 20 years,” he said. To compound the problem he pointed out that there isn’t enough investment into “targeted production innovation” with 70% of the £415m of public funding into agri-food R&D being spent on the ‘ologies’ [fundamental core science] rather than applied work of value to growers and the food chain. “We need to see a movement of money to ensure the targeted needs of industry” which he predicted could only come from the dual investment resulting from public and private partnering.

Despite his words of warning, he said that home supply of apples had begun to recover and that domestic strawberry production was making a very significant market impact.
Looking to the future Professor Crute outlined that the potential impact of climate change on temperature, water and solar radiation could play into the hands of northern Europe if preparatory work was commissioned into water capture and water use.

Speaking on behalf of the UK wine industry, Frazer Thompson, Managing Director of English Wines Group (Chapel Down Wines) suggested that the UK wine industry was “capable of greatness” having emerged from its “pioneering era” started by companies like Carr Taylor.

Mr Thompson said that the UK’s “fantastic benign climate” and geology, particularly the chalk soils in southern England, could even be “ideal of champagne” production. Adding to Professor Crute’s point on climate shifts, Mr Thompson provoked thought by stating that for every degree increase in temperature, wine production could move north by 270 miles. “You just need to drive south for an hour and a half in France and you reach the Champagne region,” a journey of less than 270 miles!
Commenting on the unique aspects of the UK vine and wine market, he added that 40% of the grapes now grown domestically are sparkling varietals producing genuine world class wines winning gold medals in international awards.

The prospects will only get better he predicted; “the UK’s cool climate wines command premium prices because consumers are looking for the zesty, zingy, fresh wines we can produce in this country.” Given that English wine producers cannot produce high volumes, this ability to generate good margins per bottle was vital.

The popular East Malling Research farm tours drew a good crowd as resident scientists walked them through their near-market research. Dr Mark Else explained his work on using deficit irrigation to improve strawberry fruit flavour, quality and shelf life which he explained would be valuable for those producers in the major strawberry growing regions where abstraction rates are already unsustainable.

Professor Jerry Cross outlined his research into integrated pest, disease and environmental crop management, essential tools for meeting market demands for minimising pesticide residues. Dr David Simpson shared his work on the everbearing strawberry variety, Finesse which is being listed by both Sainsbury’s and Tesco this summer. The variety has the potential to provide growers with a robust plant that will produce reliably consistent yield of good quality fruit whilst delivering very good resistance to soil born diseases like Verticillium wilt and crown rot.

Jon Day, Fruit Focus Event Director, summed up the event as being “packed with energy, innovation and focus leaving visitors in no doubt that with targeted investment in R&D the UK fruit and vine sectors have boundless opportunity over the coming decades. The demand for home-grown fruit and wine has grown to the point that our limitation is not being able to supply what the markets would take; what a great position to be in!”

Fruit Focus 2011 will be held on 20th July at East Malling in Kent, for more details go to www.fruitfocus.co.uk.