Is there a finer, more British meal than good old fashioned baked beans on toast? Even though they are a staple of the British diet – about 2m cans are consumed in the UK each day – the haricot beans they are made from have been far too difficult to grow in Britain because the growing season is too short, with cold springs and wet autumns. Instead, the beans are made from imported haricot beans grown in warmer climates such as North America, Ethiopia and China.
But now the first commercial crop of homegrown haricot beans has been harvested recently at a farm in Lincolnshire, after 12 years of development at the University of Warwick. The new bean variety can be sown in May, when the weather is warm enough and harvested early in autumn in September, when the weather is still dry enough. An added bonus is that the beans are also resistant to diseases.
And the homegrown British haricot bean now offers the chance to reduce food imports, cut carbon dioxide emissions from long-distance transport, and even help reduce fertiliser use as haricot beans are legumes that take in nitrogen from the air for their growth, and add nitrogen to the soil after harvesting.
