THE UK Government has announced that growing season inspections will be granted during the current restrictions – the first stage that should allow daffodil growers to export bulbs in the coming months.

However, there is no hope for the 4.7m bunches of flowers left in the fields on the East Coast of Scotland, which became yet another casualty of the coronavirus pandemic.

Managing director of Grampian Growers, Mark Clark, who works with 13 daffodil growers in the region, producing 6m bunches of flowers each spring, told The SF: “We decided as a board that we weren’t prepared to put our pickers and packers at risk during the lockdown and closed down operations until we got clarification from Scottish Government and Police Scotland.

“Daffodils grow quickly, so by the time the Scottish Government clarified flower-picking to be essential, we had already lost 90% of our flower pickers, 75% of our flowers and 85% of our customers.

Around £1.2m worth of flowers were left in the field which was a huge setback to members.”

Mr Clark continued: “This was a huge blow to our members as the margin they make from fresh flowers is an important part of their business. We had a fantastic start to the season with plenty of pickers and demand was strong for our crop – we had 200 flower pickers ready 10 days prior to lockdown but were left with only 12 in the end.”

Grampian Growers’ members will now turn to their main line of business – selling bulbs – which has been given the go-ahead to continue as normal, with inspections now taking place across farms to clear them for export in the early summer. With six weeks left before bulbs are due to be lifted, Mr Clark added that some hurdles still face the industry.

“We have a unique product which is in high demand around the world. Around 97% of our bulb business is exported, with 50% of our bulbs going to America and around 45% to mainland Europe, with Holland the largest buyers,” he pointed out.

“We think we have time to see how the current pandemic plays out around the world and how that might impact on demand. We are putting every measure in place to give our growers confidence as it is an important and profitable part of their business.”

He said concerns remained over whether the product could be shipped their product and if usual customers remained open for business.

In six weeks’ time, harvesting will begin and bulbs will be lifted over a six week period where the bulbs are dried and sized before being packed. The first exports are expected to leave on July 4. Grampian Growers expects to export around 4000 tonnes of bulbs globally, which contributes 40% of its annual turnover.

Unlike daffodil flower picking, there are very few people involved in lifting bulbs and it is all done by machinery. Mr Clark has already put in plans to rearrange packing sheds allowing 2m between workers and will adjust shifts to ensure there are less people in the pack-houses.

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