HIGH shipping and labour costs are threatening the viability of the Island’s commercial daffodil crop, according to a grower of the bright, yellow flower.
Farmer Matthew Lamy of Somerleigh Farms said that daffodils remained an effective crop to rotate with Jersey Royals in the fight against eel-worm but it was no longer a significant earner.
He said that daffodils would probably be the next viably commercial crop to go. A few years ago his farm use to plant 150 vergées; now they are planting only 30 vergées.
He said: “‘What’s the point of growing daffs if you haven’t got the labour force to pick them or you can’t afford to deploy it? We pick only what we can – so that’s a small area, which the workers can pick if weather next spring stops us from planting Jersey Royals.
“We carry on with them mainly because of rotation of the potato land. Daffodils help in the PCN (potato Cyst Nematodes, or eel-worm) problem and they rest the field. We now rotate for two or three years and then go back in with a potato crop, without having to use chemicals to deal with PCN – but it’s not a big earner.’
Mr Lamy also said that the Jersey Royal market was “not in a wonderful state” but added “although increased government funding has averted the catastrophe that would otherwise have happened.”
- Read more in today’s Countryside interview in the JEP.
