Almonds in Devon, kiwis in Kent as farmers warm to climate change - Published: the times 15 August 2005

 

BRITAIN is expected to bear the exotic fruits of global warming this autumn with crops of almonds, kiwi fruit, apricots and even tea.

Farmers, particularly in southern England, have taken advantage of warmer springs and summers by cultivating plants that normally flourish in the heat of southern Europe, South America and Africa. According to meteorologists, Britain’s climate is getting warmer every year. Since 1900, the average temperature has risen by about 1C, and the growing season has lengthened by about a month.

As a result, farmers are growing crops that have previously been unable to survive. The Infrequent Farmer, a landscape consultant with a farm near Honiton, Devon, has planted 100 almond trees in his orchard on the banks of the River Otter.

He is aiming to challenge almond harvests that are imported from Africa, Asia and southern Europe. “With the climate changing, it seemed a possibility,” he told a local newspaper. He is also planning to grow “forgotten” British fruits such as quinces and mulberries.

England’s first major crop of apricots is already on sale, after being cultivated in the fertile soils of southeastern Kent. Apricots have previously failed to grow in Britain because they flower in February, earlier than any other fruit tree, and have been vulnerable to frost. Those on sale in most supermarkets are imported from Spain, southern France and the Middle East. Theresa Huxley, a Sainsbury’s product technologist who helped to develop the British-grown apricot, said that fruitgrowers were using new cultivation techniques to exploit Kent’s increasingly mild climate. “We know summers are getting warmer, and we thought it was worth trying. The colour of the apricots was superb, a dark orange with a beautiful sheen,” she said. Farmers backed by Sainsbury’s are also developing kiwi fruit to be grown across southern England. The fruit, which is currently imported from South America and Africa, is being developed in Kent and Dorset.

British-grown tea is now competing with traditional Indian and Chinese varieties at Fortnum & Mason in Piccadilly. Tregothnan tea from Cornwall, costing up to £30 a packet, has been cultivated by the head gardener, Jonathon Jones, and his landlord, Evelyn Boscawen, son of Lord Falmouth. Previous attempts at cultivating tea plants in Britain have failed because of ground frost in the winter and a lack of strong summer sun.

Farmers across the South and East Anglia are also growing walnuts. William Opie, a manufacturer of unusual delicacies such as pickled walnuts, said that over the past three years he has bought nuts from a small but growing number of British suppliers.

“We have a lot of growers around the country — a couple in Sussex, some lovely orchards in Norfolk and orchards right the way down to Somerset. The trees can grow as far north as Shropshire,” he told the National Farmers’ Union website.

“Climate change will suit walnuts and, from a personal point of view, a walnut orchard is one of the most beautiful sights in the Kent countryside,” he said.Many scientists cite emissions as the chief factor in climate change. They say that even if future levels are strictly controlled, so much is already in the atmosphere that further temperature rises are inevitable.

Temperatures worldwide increased by 0.6C during the past century, and across Europe the rise was 0.95C, two thirds of it since 1975. Heat rises are forecast to accelerate over the next 100 years. Scientists predict that global warming will intensify climate change and in Britain the greatest effects will be felt in the South East.The summer of 2003, the hottest in Europe for 500 years, brought a British record of 38.5C (101.3) recorded at Brogdale, Kent.