By Ali Withers

While biopesticide availability continues to lag way behind the EU and the USA UK fruit and vegetable growers will struggle to meet growing consumer demand for healthy, natural food.

The UK is a long way from self-sufficient in food. Between 1988 and 1993, approximately 55% of the fruit and vegetables consumed in the UK were domestically produced. Subsequently production went into decline and fell to 33% in 2006.

According to figures from Defra in 2008 a total of 152,900 hectares of land is used for growing fruit and vegetable.

It breaks down into vegetables grown in the open (121,700), Orchard fruit in commercial orchards (20,800), Soft fruit including crops grown in Spanish tunnels (9,600) and Glasshouse crops of vegetables, salads and fruit (800).

On a crowded island with little room to expand growers need to make best use of the land they have.

That means increasing yield, doing everything they can to minimise loss from pests and diseases and at the same time doing it in a way that protects and sustains the land for future use.

It’s been calculated there there has been a 15% reduction in pesticide use in the UK in the last decade. However, if pesticides were not used at all as much as 50% of fruit and vegetables could be lost in transportation and storage and production costs could increase by 75% – translating into much higher food costs for consumers.

Yet as the older chemical agricultural products are increasingly being deregulated in the UK and Europe, particularly over the next 15 years thanks to new EU legislation (EU 91/414), UK producers continue to be hampered by lack of access to the full range of low-chem agricultural products. » Read more: Fruit and Vegetable Growers in UK Can Increase Yield Without Access to a Range of Biopesticides, Why?