"Twenty years ago the crop would have been decimated by the inclement weather over the past few months but thanks to two decades of investment in protective covers this summer's crop has been safeguarded from the recent weather problems," he said. "There are in fact more strawberries on supermarket shelves than this time last year and we will not be importing fruit as we have plenty of British strawberries available."
BBC Radio 4's Farming Today program had claimed that British strawberry growers in some parts of the country were having their worst season in years, with recent wet weather has cost some farmers hundreds of thousands of pounds.
