Call not to buy cheap vegetables

IRELAND’S remaining commercial vegetable growers have gained support from an unexpected but potentially powerful source.

There were 377 commercial vegetable growers in 1999. There are now just 215. There are only five commercial carrot growers left. Unfair pricing, weather disruption and increasing competition from imports are blamed.

The survivors still employ more than 1,100 workers, but their predecessors were allowed wither away — perhaps because consumers were gaining from the low-priced vegetable offers in the shops.