UK apples and pears will be missing from the shelves

Apples and pears could be the UK's next food shortage, writes The Guardian. In fact, British growers are renovating only a third of orchards, also because – they complain – “the earnings from supermarket sales are unsustainable and insufficient". But how many trees should be planted to keep the sector in balance? "At least 1 million new trees a year to maintain the 5,500 hectares of production in the United Kingdom”, explains Ali Capper, head of the British Apples & Pears trade association, which represents about 80% of the sector. had planned "to order only 480,000 apple and pear trees, but the number has been reduced to 330,000" due to the lack of investment in view of the low yields of large retailers.Capper says that costs for fruit growers have increased by about 23% as the costs of harvesting, energy, transport and packaging have also increased while the yield has been less than 1% and "most growers are now losing I give money". So much so that there are not a few who are ...