Scottish farmer says competition from SA makes harvest 'unviable', donates entire blueberry crop

[TheChamp]

A Scottish farmer is giving away his entire crop of blueberries, worth £2 million (R42 million), to charity, saying cheap imports and high labour costs have made harvesting the fruit economically unviable.

Peter Thomson has been growing blueberries at his farm in Blairgowrie, northeast Scotland, for more than four decades, producing 300 tonnes of fruit per year.

Scottish farmer says competition from SA makes harvest 'unviable', donates entire blueberry crop | Business

A Scottish farmer is giving away his entire crop of blueberries, worth R42m, to charity, saying cheap imports and high labour costs made harvesting economically unviable.

www-news24-com.cdn.ampproject.org

 

[Gordon_R]

Never heard of blueberry cultivation outside of the Northern Hemisphere. Learn something new every day...

 

[surface]

Scottish farmer says competition from SA makes harvest 'unviable', donates entire blueberry crop | Business

A Scottish farmer is giving away his entire crop of blueberries, worth R42m, to charity, saying cheap imports and high labour costs made harvesting economically unviable.

www-news24-com.cdn.ampproject.org

Why doesn't he simply import cheap labor from SA? Lots have no jobs due to BEE - thousands on this forum.

 

[Speedster]

That URL makes me think this is a fake news article

But this link confirms it is correct: https://www.news24.com/fin24/econom...harvest-unviable-donates-entire-crop-20221030

 

[Polymathic]

F

 

[rvZA]

These poor farmers of today seems to lack business experience.

Close the farm and sell it off. Start up in Peru, which is much safer than SA and grow there. Import back to the UK at cheaper prices undercutting South Africans and fellow Peru farmers.

 

[Fulcrum29]

I can see us being named as competition, but it is Peru who is crushing this Scotsman.

Agronometrics in Charts: Peruvian blueberry exports projected to increase by up to 15%

In this installment of the ‘Agronometrics In Charts’ series, Sarah Ilyas studies the state of the Peruvian blueberry season.

www.freshfruitportal.com

Peru is now the #1 exporter of blueberries in the world owing to the rise of this crop’s agricultural exports, with the recent inclusion of the Israeli market, Peruvian blueberries can now be sold in 62 different countries.

In the 2021–2022 campaign, Peru exported 222,714 tonnes and the production area expanded by 17,707 hectares.

 

[Fulcrum29]

 

[Pak Fa Fui]

We are killing farmers, in Scotland

 

[TheChamp]

I can see us being named as competition, but it is Peru who is crushing this Scotsman.

Agronometrics in Charts: Peruvian blueberry exports projected to increase by up to 15%

In this installment of the ‘Agronometrics In Charts’ series, Sarah Ilyas studies the state of the Peruvian blueberry season.

www.freshfruitportal.com

So he is just hating on us because we are Africans?

 

[Fulcrum29]

We are killing farmers, in Scotland

Our export market size is around 0.50%. However, we are rapidly expanding, but so is the competition.

 

[Polymathic]

Then why are Blueberries so expensive over here?

 

[Pak Fa Fui]

What happened to France, did they stop production

 

[ForceFate]

Then why are Blueberries so expensive over here?

Could it be that most of the harvest is exported, leaving us with very little?

 

[rvZA]

Then why are Blueberries so expensive over here?

South Africans are rich and has a lot of money and will pay more expensive for goods than elsewhere in the world. Things like Blueberries are dirt cheap abroad. All coming down to living costs, whether it was made / grown here or not.

 

[Fulcrum29]

So he is just hating on us because we are Africans?

His problem is that his market, the buyers, are looking to imports, and then they look to domestic produce. He can't compete on price, and it has turned his blueberry business unsustainable. For him to compete, his buyers need to deplete their import options, and they store, so this has driven him to toss his crop, well he donated it. What must he do with a perishable harvest which sits?

So yah, he will be pissed with his competition.

 

[Cosmik Debris]

Why doesn't he simply import cheap labor from SA? Lots have no jobs due to BEE - thousands on this forum.

Because, if you read the article, you would have known cheap labour in the UK costs this:

Labour costs meanwhile have risen from £7 an hour five years ago to £10.10 today, even before state pension contributions and holiday pay are taken into account.

 

[Cosmik Debris]

South Africans are rich and has a lot of money and will pay more expensive for goods than elsewhere in the world. Things like Blueberries are dirt cheap abroad. All coming down to living costs, whether it was made / grown here or not.

True. Salmon is dirt cheap in Europe but expensive in SA.

 

[Pak Fa Fui]

The UK are very proud to buy local produce and in the past happy to pay the increased price
However the past two years and their slow economy they are more price focused and buy on price
If the UK used their immigrants better and not ship them off the Rwanda, they can drop their production costs
When the uk was part of the EU everything across Europe was tax free and cheaper, now that there is increasing tax on everything to and from Europe, their cost of production with added tax makes their agriculture products to costly to buy killing their ailing production
Dont blame SA, blame Brexit

 

[RedViking]

Then why are Blueberries so expensive over here?

Because we import from the Scottish Farmer and export our blueberries to the Scottish Farmer's family.