There could be a limited supply of roast potatoes this Christmas as waterlogged fields have left Lincolnshire farmers struggling

Lincolnshire's potato famers say a key part of people's Christmas dinners could be in limited supply after storm Babet flooded the county a month ago

Having encountered unprecedented levels of rainfall has meant waterlogged farms have struggled.

Experts suggest that the recent potato crop is expected to hit a record low - with retailers forced to supplement supplies from cold storage

Andrew Ward tells us more about how badly the weather affected his farms in Leadenham:

"We've got an area where there's 100 tonnes of potatoes under the water and that may only be 5 or 6 acres but it's still 100 tonnes, it's quite a lot of thousands of pounds of produce and ultimately it's food that won't end up on a supermarket shelf.

"Potatoes last year were running in short supply and ran out, it'll be the same this year but even on a bigger scale. This is what we have to look at, it's food security... how much do we value our own food grown in Lincolnshire and how important is that?"

David Armstrong is another local farmer in Lincolnshire who tells us the weather plays a huge part:

"With the amount of rainfall we actually ended up getting, I think we recorded somewhere between 85 and 100mm over the period, but that is also following on from 13mm of rain the previous weekend, and we pulled all our stops out to lift a lot of potatoes in that pre-season week but when I knew we'd got more than 3 inches of rain, I knew we were in trouble.

"There was actually 4 acres of potatoes that got submerged, buried under the water, and potatoes are 80% water in themselves so it doesn't take a lot of added water to rot them, so none of them were good anymore."

The UK's recent potato crop is expected to hit a record low of 4.1m tonnes with retailers forced to supplement supplies from cold storage, experts say.

Shoppers can expect empty shelves after the harvests of broccoli and cauliflower were badly affected. Supplies of festive favourites like sprouts and parsnips have also suffered but are still expected to recover enough to reach Christmas plates.

Unprecedented levels of rainfall, almost double the average for October, including Storms Agnes, Babet and Ciaran have meant waterlogged farms have struggled to produce enough veg for Christmas.

Lincolnshire grower, Martin Tate, who manages 18,000 acres in the county, said:

"There won't be enough broccoli to supply the Christmas dinner demand. There is a nationwide shortage of broccoli, in fact, there's a European wide shortage. The whole of northern Europe, including Germany, has been experiencing the same wet conditions as us, as have Poland and Holland. Imports from Spain have been hit by an exceptionally dry summer," he added.

"Cauliflower is still a problem, and you can expect to see empty trays over the next few weeks but may return to normal before Christmas. After some initial issues brussels sprouts supplies look like they will be okay."

Experts said that chips will not be affected, as those potatoes used for chipping are mostly grown in Belgium.

Earlier this month, T.H. Clements, one of the country's largest suppliers of brussels sprouts with 11,000 acres in Lincolnshire, warned that sprouts would be smaller this year than average.

The warnings come alongside the release of a report by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit on the impact of extreme weather on the nation's crops.

It finds British households are likely to pay an extra £605 for food in 2022 and 2023 due to climate change impacts and historically high oil, gas and fertiliser prices, adding the cost of 10 weekly family shops to bills as floods and drought hit food production.

Around £17 billion has been added to the nation's food bill by these two factors alone the study finds, with the Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey recently warning of ongoing climate risks for food price inflation.

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