Farmers fear for the potato crop
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POTATO growers across County Wexford fear the worst as frost has trapped their crop in the fields. The cold spell has left them with nothing to do but worry that their spuds will be damaged beyond saving by the icy ground conditions.
'We will not know until it thaws but it is not looking good,' warned Steven Hatton from Davidstown, acutely aware that potatoes are at least 70 per cent water. Once they freeze, they are likely to be useless and unfit for consumption.
'There is a good chance that the potatoes left in the ground will go to mush,' said the Ballyeden based farmer. He reported that at least 600 acres of the crop in Wexford has not been harvested, with Golden Wonders, Roosters and Kerr's Pinks still to be lifted.
While growers in the Carne area specialise in early varieties, those elsewhere have been delayed by the rain that swept across the waterlogged countryside from October to December. Since then, they have been kept out of the fields by the frost.
Steven Hatton is too young to remember the big freeze of 1963, the year in which he was born. However, he said that he has seen nothing like the current conditions since he started growing potatoes as a young man. He reckoned that 40 per cent of his spuds have not been brought in – and the likelihood now is that they never will be.
To make matters worse, the prices so far this season have been the worst since 1977, driven down by big supermarkets such as Dunnes Stores using potatoes as a loss leader to draw customers into their shops.
It is forecast that the price will now start to shoot up as supplies become scarce. Steven Hatton expects imports from England will only go some way to meet the demand and he has fingers crossed that he may yet be able to salvage something from the frost hardened fields.
