AN EXPERIENCED grower believes Guernsey’s vegetable industry will die. Dave Gorvel, who has been in the business for 37 years, said there were only about nine people in the island growing vegetables and potatoes, compared with up to 50 some 20 to 25 years ago.

‘I think eventually the growing industry will die because you can import from all over the world and people going to supermarkets don’t tend to care where their vegetables come from,’ he said.

‘It could be in the next five to 10 years. It’s a more competitive market and we are not subsidised. Guernsey is part of a small worldwide market. The price of fruit and veg has probably gone down rather than up.’

He said vegetable growers had their backs against the wall.

‘You need to invest and have land, premises and irrigation and all the things that go with the machinery and you need £250,000 to start.’

Anybody new to the industry could not expect to make anything in the first six months of business, he said. ‘In business now, you can’t afford to make mistakes. Most of the [people in the] growing industry are getting old and when we give up, I don’t think there is anybody to follow and the value to the island is lost.’

He employs six full-time and some part-time workers and currently grows the likes of lettuces, cauliflowers, cabbages and spring onions for his family-run business at Gorvels Farm Shop, St Martin’s.

The news comes at a time when UK farmers face one of the worst harvests in memory, with rain-sodden crops rotting in the fields and the prospect of rock-bottom prices.

It is feared that poor harvests caused by the bad weather could damage farmers more than 2001′s devastating foot and mouth outbreak.

The north of England has been hardest-hit, but farmers across Britain have suffered.

In Guernsey, some early-season crops of potatoes have ‘sprung’ this year because of the drier weather early in the season.

‘The ground is not in as good condition. The average rainfall is going down but you are getting more flash floods. It’s better to get four or five hours of heavy drizzle and lighter rain rather than downpours.’

But generally local crops have not been too badly affected by the weather.

‘Global warming is bothering us now. What we are growing is changing. We are growing earlier and things are being produced earlier and later because of the weather and our season is getting longer. Root crops are difficult to grow in Guernsey because of the low cost of importing them.’

Pests are also causing more problems than in the past.

St Peter’s potato and vegetable grower Terry Robert said that the wet season had generally helped growing locally, although he would like to see a bit of a dry spell now.

‘It has not really affected us locally: just the weeds grow faster,’ he said.