Millions of heads of lettuce ruined by aphid outbreak

Millions of lettuces are set to be wasted as farmers are grappling with a record outbreak of aphids that has devastated the end of their growing season.

Growers are facing losses of £10m, as 30 million heads of lettuce will be rendered unusable, according to the British Leafy Salads Association (BLSA).

The organisation says that warm and dry weather has produced “ideal conditions” for the bugs, with as much as 30% of the UK crop between now and the end of October set to be wasted.

Homegrown lettuce dominates the market in the summer and early autumn weeks before a transition that sees more imports filling shop shelves.

But imported lettuces are now likely to be on the shelves in the UK a couple of weeks earlier than usual.

Farms in many parts of England – the Midlands, East Anglia, the south-east, south and north-west – have been impacted by the outbreak.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, BLSA spokesman Dieter Lloyd described the issue as “serious”, while not affecting all of the UK crop.

He said people have been eating salads from UK products “all summer” but added: “The issue though is serious, the aphids bloom in June and again in August/September.”

“What we’re talking about here is the loss of the crop over the course of the last couple of weeks and the couple of weeks ahead.”

He said that “this is not all of the heads in the UK, but it’s a significant percentage of it” and producers are “looking at not using 30 million heads of lettuce at the cost of £10m to the growers”.

Over the course of the season, UK growers produce around half a billion heads of lettuce.