One of Ireland’s top vegetable growers said they are leaving the industry after three generations due to the falling price of food and the rising cost of inputs.
Cahal Lenehan sent an email to his seed supplier last week informing them that he will not be purchasing any seeds this season, because he, along with his business partner and brother, Rory, have made the decision to stop growing.
“Every year our net margin was being clipped, going down, down, down,” Mr Lenehan of JCR Lenehan said.
“Vegetables and fruit are underpriced. My cabbage on one retailer’s shelf has gone from around €1.39 five years ago to 99c.”
The farm at Garlow Cross, Co Meath, is a family business in its third generation.
Having “given our lives to it”, Mr Lenehan said it was far from an easy decision to close the business.
“We’ve been ripping out foolscap pages and writing down figures and trying to get them to look right,” he said.
“Being honest, we were only fooling ourselves. They were never going to look right.
“We just made that decision that it’s time to say goodbye to it now rather than give it another go for another year and find ourselves in a worse situation than we’re already in.
“We’re not in a bad situation, we’re thankfully safe enough that everybody will be looked after, redundancies will be paid, anybody that is owed money will be paid, and I won’t sell any land.
“Numbers never lie, unfortunately, and we’re in a situation now where we can go out with our heads held high.”
Business just about keeping its head above water
The farm, which produces Brussels sprouts and cabbage, employs 10 staff members throughout a given season, with some temporary staff during the summer.
There aren’t many Brussels sprouts growers left in Ireland — with Mr Lenehan estimating his business is the “second biggest in the country”.
However, the prices of the produce on the shelves are just barely sustainable, he said, with the business just about keeping its head above water.
“But, with the current season we’re facing and all the added increases on inputs, it never made sense.
“Someone asked me the other day could I give one input cost that has gone down — and I actually couldn’t find one.
“I’ll take two inputs — cardboard, which I use a lot of, and fertiliser, the price rises of those alone when we broke it down say for our cabbage products, was costing us just over an extra 5c to produce, which means a minimum of 40c on a box of cabbage, and unfortunately, we couldn’t get that 40c back,” he said.
“And that’s only two input costs; take the rest of them and there are at least a dozen more costs.”
He said he and his workers in the business spent last summer being “busy fools”, working very hard, sometimes with Mr Lenehan not returning home from work until around 5am, all the while putting out good volumes but with the return not making sense for the effort.
“Costs are going up all the time, fuel is going to be at an all-time high now in the next few weeks, energy has soared up by over 30%, my packaging last year went up over 15%, this year it’s gone up over another 15%.
“My fertiliser, this year, is to go up by 100%. And possibly, as the season goes on, up to 150% I’m told - but I’m not waiting for that opportunity to find out.”
There is still crop in the ground and the business is in production until early June.
“We’ve seen this coming. We’ve behaved our spending for the last three years.
“We’ve become as efficient as we can, we’ve cut corners wherever we can that we didn’t compromise the crop or the quality, we’re not big spenders on machinery.
“We were thinking of building a new packhouse last year and somebody was looking down on me and told us not to do it.”
A plea to save this industry
Mr Lenehan said he does not see much enthusiasm in the horticultural sector, and there are not a lot of people to take over the running of businesses.
Mr Lenehan’s son, Conor, is currently finishing up an agriculture-related degree in college and he was passionate about continuing with the family business; however, he understands why his father made the decision he did.
“In terms of confidence going into the industry, it’s at an all-time low; growers are on the ropes,” Mr Lenehan continued.
“You were never going to make a fortune out of this industry anyway, but just to get some recognition for what you do and the effort you put in and the risks you take.”
He is calling on retailers to “please listen as a plea to save this industry”.
“Save this industry for the sake of a few cents. Everything else is going up - all we’re asking you to do is put up the price of a very important product to give the grower a fair return that they can keep their heads just above water.
“When it’s gone, it’s gone. There will be no more Irish vegetables if this goes on.”
Mr Lenehan said he just couldn’t “see the light at the end of the tunnel anymore” in the industry.
“It’s absolutely killing me. I lived for this. But now it’s at a stage where I mightn’t be able to live much more if I keep going.
“It’s too late for us, so be it. We’ve given it everything.”
Mr Lenehan said he is looking onwards and upwards to the “next adventure”.
“I have the rest of my life with my wife and my kids and my parents, maybe it’s time to give them a little bit more attention than they’ve gotten in the last 35 odd years,” he said.
“Don’t be sorry for us. Be relieved for us.”
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