World News for Students of English

06-04-2022 15:00

Farmers in the UK are having big problems as a result of the growing prices of energy.

Tony Montalbano and his family grew cucumbers in England for many years, and they supplied big supermarkets. They never had such problems until now. They grew plants in 30,000 square meters of greenhouses, but now, the greenhouses are empty. The company is saving money if it doesn’t heat its greenhouses. It means that it’s too cold for the plants to grow.

Last year, it cost 25 pence to grow one cucumber. Now, the price almost doubled, and experts say that it could soon be as high as 70 pence. Also, the prices of fertilizer and employees are growing, too. Other farmers who grow plants like peppers and tomatoes are having the same problems.

Difficult words: supply (to give a large amount of something to people or companies who want to buy it), greenhouse (a special building where people grow plants), fertilizer (a substance which farmers put in the soil to make plants grow better).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.