Food, in brief

The hottest summer on record

Growers in Essex blamed heatwaves in the hottest year on record for losing up to 40% of their peppers. [3] A BBC report on Cornwall's flower farms said the hottest summer on record made growing hard for all farmers. [7] In Scotland, cooler weather has now lowered the bluetongue risk enough to ease some testing. [1]

Farm costs climbing

Lea Valley's glasshouse growers say their fuel costs rose 120% in a year and fertiliser 60%. [3] They say most supermarkets refused to pay them more. [3] Scotland's farmers' union says farmers in Dumfries and Galloway carry a significant burden to protect the rest of the country. [1]

Governments paying part of the bill

China's finance ministry plans wider insurance for farmers growing rice, wheat, corn and soybeans. [4] The US meat inspection agency extended cuts of 30% to 75% in overtime fees for small plants. [5]

Tracking farm animals

NoFence, a Norwegian company, launched a GPS collar that keeps cattle inside a boundary drawn on a phone. [6] China's insurance plan asks for tracking technology to be used in insuring pigs and dairy cattle. [4]

1. 1South-west Scotland is now a bluetongue zone for at least two years. Its farm minister says the virus is not going away.
2. 2Heat cost Lea Valley 40% of its peppers
3. 3China widens insurance for farmers
4. 4US cuts inspection fees for small meat plants
5. 5A collar that replaces the fence

Much of Dumfries and Galloway, in south-west Scotland, became a bluetongue restricted zone on Thursday 10 September, joining England and Wales. [1]

Watch whether new Scottish cases stop as the weather cools, and whether cases appear outside Dumfries and Galloway, which the minister has told farmers to prepare for. [1]

Lea Valley Growers' Association says its members lost up to 40% of their peppers this summer, about 27,000kg over the 10-week picking season. [3]

Its glasshouses in London, Essex and Hertfordshire grow about three-quarters of Britain's cucumbers and sweet peppers. [3]

The association blamed heatwaves, and said the heat also exhausted the bees it buys, so tomato output fell 3% to 5%. [3]

Its secretary said members lost about 15 million pounds as energy and fertiliser prices rose because of the Iran war. [3]

Growers say most supermarkets refused to raise the price they pay, and some growers have gone into administration, the process for a company that cannot pay its debts. [3]

The British Retail Consortium, the trade body for shops, says the higher costs will reach prices later. [3]

Midges, bees and pepper plants each work only between certain temperatures, so a hot summer spread a sheep virus in Scotland and cut a glasshouse crop in Essex.

The temperature does that, so one hot summer spread a sheep virus in Scotland and cut a pepper crop in Essex.

The heat went past what the pepper roots and the bought-in bees could take, and tomato plants that need bees to pollinate them set less fruit.

Petalon Farm near Newquay gets very few frosts, so it can grow flower varieties that farms in colder places cannot.

Bluetongue also needs wind to carry the midges and unvaccinated animals to infect, and the pepper growers were also hit by fuel and fertiliser prices.

Each can see what it did to their own animals or plants, and none of them can see the rest.

China's finance ministry published a plan on Friday 11 September to strengthen insurance for farmers. [4] China's government says the plan will steady farmers' incomes and protect the food supply. [4]

It widens insurance covering the full cost of growing rice, wheat, corn and soybeans, and insurance on the income from planting them. [4]

It also asks for more cover for potatoes, rapeseed, peanuts, sugar beet and highland barley, and for farms growing rice, wheat and corn seed. [4]

It asks insurers to use tracking technology for livestock and to adjust cover for breeding sows, fattening pigs and dairy cattle. [4]

The Reuters summary gives no budget, so how much money reaches farmers is not stated. [4]

The US Food Safety and Inspection Service, the agency that inspects meat and poultry plants, has extended its cut in overtime and holiday inspection fees to 30 September 2027, while the money lasts. [5]

Small plants pay 30% less and very small plants 75% less. They can claim back part of what they paid since 5 October 2025. [5]

On 10 September the US under secretary for food safety, Mindy Brashears, spoke to California's poultry processors. [5]

She said the agency is moving from testing whether salmonella is present to counting how much there is, so it can spot rising trends earlier. [5]

A small plant may need an inspector outside normal hours only in busy seasons or when short of staff. [5]

NoFence, a Norwegian company that makes GPS collars for cattle, sheep and goats, has launched its third collar, the N3, with software to manage a herd. [6]

A farmer draws a boundary in a phone app. An animal that walks into it hears a rising tone, and gets a mild electric pulse only if it keeps going. [6]

The company says the N3 is five times tougher than the last model. [6]

It also connects through collars passing signals to each other, or by satellite where there is no phone signal. [6]

The software writes grazing records for each field, which can serve as paperwork for US conservation programmes. [6]

NoFence says virtual fencing is used by under 5% of the US sector, while in Norway it has been in commercial use for more than a decade. [6]

Flowers from the Farm, a British trade body for flower growers, has about 1,100 members, and about 240 of them are in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. [7]

Its founder, Georgie Newbery, says she could find maybe five growers selling flowers when she started 16 years ago. [7]

The body estimates the sector brings 30 million pounds a year to the UK economy. [7]

Petalon Farm near Newquay went from cutting a few hundred flowers for a few weeks a year to about 15,000 a week. [7]

Newbery says Britain still imports 85% of the flower foliage bought at market. [7] She says flower farming gives farmers a way to diversify, because flowers are worth more than cabbages. [7]