Jess Brown-Fuller congratulates Sussex Growers' ability to feed the nation

The horticulture sector in West Sussex employs 10,000 workers in the peak season in a sector worth £1 billion, according to Richard Hopkins of Fargro and Rachael Williams of the WSGA.

During her visit, Jess discussed the issues and opportunities facing the sector. As someone who has worked alongside Eastern European farm workers during summer holiday jobs, Jess recognises the hard work and the difficulties recruiting staff in the sector.

Rachael wanted Jess to know the strides local growers are making to recruit and train people to work in horticulture. She and Richard also pointed out that heavier rainfall and warmer weather resulting from climate change could be used to Sussex’s advantage particularly if reservoirs could be built to store excess rainfall.

“Chichester’s coastal plain has the perfect climatic conditions for growing food as well as most of the top-grade agriculture land along the south coast and in the whole of Surrey and Sussex,” said Jess.

“I’m keen to ensure we use our land wisely in Chichester constituency - because that’s vital for our national and local economy, as well as our resilience to climate change. Currently our low-lying coastal plain does not have protected status - which is odd as it’s just perfect for growing food and most prone to flooding.

"The Liberal Democrats would like to see Chichester constituency providing food, wetland habitat and water storage to combat two major risks facing the UK: food security and climate change related flooding. The Lib Dems are championing a more holistic, strategically responsible, and long term land-use policy than the current government’s approach of ‘let’s build houses on coastal flood plains and destroy food-growing land forever’ – which, in my view, is just madness.” she said.