British farmers will plant a million less apple trees this year as costs soar and supermarkets squeeze prices

British farmers will plant a million less apple trees this year as the industry is ravaged by inflation, labour shortages, climate change and cheap supermarket prices.

Landowners across the country are digging up their orchards as apple production becomes financially unviable.

According to British Apples and Pears Limited (BAPL), British apple growers normally plan to plant 1 million to 1.5 million trees every year.

But this year growers ordered just 500,000 saplings - and they have since cancelled a third of those.

Last year a report by the agricultural and sustainability consultancy Promar for the NFU found that inflation for growers was running at around 23 per cent.

But they only received on average a 0.8 per cent increase in their returns from selling apples to supermarkets.

The BAPL has now published data highlighting the continued struggles for the top UK fruit growers - the biggest data set ever released at one time by the industry.

It reported that confidence in British apple growing is understandably low - with 70 per cent of growers admitting they are less confident than they were a year ago and almost half (45 per cent) of respondents said they have scaled back their future investment plans.

Just three per cent said they have a ‘true partnership’ with supermarkets, while 45 per cent say retailers only care about price.

The immediate impacts of orchards not being replanted is the loss of British-grown varieties, as well as biodiversity loss.

But long-term implications means a decrease in British apples in supermarkets for shoppers - at a time when buying local is being encouraged.

There are many factors as to why this is happening - but simply put, growers are unable to afford to invest in new orchards because they are getting such low returns for their fruit - they are no longer profitable.

James Smith, a fifth-generation fruit grower who runs Loddington Farm in Kent, has ripped up three orchards because apple production is no longer financially viable.

He has been in the business for over 20 years, but says growers cannot afford to invest in new orchards because they have such low returns on their fruit.

When he joined the farm 98 per cent of their income was from apples and pears.

But Loddington Farm's commercial apple production has dropped from 80 per cent to 4 per cent since 2018.

His remaining orchards are currently being converted to organic production but there has been no new planting since 2018.

James says climate change, labour shortages, energy prices and retailer behaviour all play an equal role in the farm's decision to step away from apple production.

He said: "The first three all increase risk and cost, the latter ensures that none of those risks will be rewarded or the costs covered.

"In terms of volume of fruit grown, we peaked (around 8 years ago) at 2,000 tons of our own production and now plan to pick around 170 tons.

"So in terms of production, we are producing around 8.3% of what we did".