Claim: Climate Change is Causing “Wonky” Vegetables in Europe
22 hours ago Eric Worrall
Essay by Eric Worrall
There is a more plausible explanation for what went wrong.
‘It’s not beautiful, but you can still eat it’: climate crisis leads to more wonky vegetables in Netherlands
Crowdfunding scheme salvages ‘imperfect’ fruit and veg following the country’s wettest autumn, winter and spring on record
Senay Boztas in AmsterdamSun 30 Jun 2024 03.00 AEST
When 31-year-old Dutch farmer Bastiaan Blok dug up his latest crop, the weather had taken a disastrous toll. His onions – 117,000 kilos of them – were the size of shallots.
“We had a very wet spring and a dry, warm summer, so the plants made very small roots,” said Blok, who farms 90 hectares in Swifterbant, in the reclaimed province of Flevoland. “Half of them were less than 40mm and normally at this size they aren’t even processed. We would have probably sold them for very little for biomass, or maybe to Poland for onion oil. It’s either far too wet and cold, or far too warm and dry, and there’s no normal growing period in between.”
Blok is one of a number of farmers in Europe’s largest agricultural exporterlinking the climate crisis to ever more “imperfect” fruit and vegetables, rejected by a food system based on standardisation and cosmetic appearance.
…https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/06/30/claim-climate-change-is-causing-wonky-vegetables-in-europe/
