Controversy in Britain attributes the vegetable shortage crisis to the exit from the European Union
When the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, visited the UK last week, some British citizens took to social media to ask the European visitor if she could bring some tomatoes.
The residents of the United Kingdom were deprived, or almost, during the past two weeks, of a dish of tomato, cucumber and lettuce salad in their daily meals, amid an acute shortage of fresh vegetables and fruits in the local markets, as the vegetable shelves were almost empty, so that some supermarkets imposed restrictions on the amount Vegetables that customers are allowed to buy.
And while the British authorities indicate that the shortage of vegetables may last for up to a month, they blame this crisis on bad weather in Spain and North Africa, but this talk didn’t convince many Britons who pointed out that other European countries don’t suffer from this crisis, which prompted some of them to ask whether the reason for this crisis is Britain’s exit from the European Union.
While the British government confirms its refusal to suggest that Brexit is responsible for the crisis in the fresh vegetable market, shoppers feel disappointed as they leave vegetable stores without tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, bags of salad, broccoli, cauliflower, berries and others.
In the midst of this crisis, British Environment Minister Therese Coffey raised ridicule after she suggested that her citizens eat turnips instead of lettuce and tomatoes, and she said before the House of Commons: “It’s important to make sure that we take pride in the specializations that we have in this country, a lot… More people are eating kale now than necessarily thinking of eating lettuce, tomatoes and the like”.
Experts don’t rule out that Britain’s exit from the European Union will have a role in store shelves being empty of fresh vegetables, despite the presence of a complex package of interrelated factors, including climate change, the United Kingdom’s excessive reliance on imports during the winter season, and high costs energy and competitive pricing strategies in supermarkets.
