Lack of labour to affect domestic produce as ready crops remain unharvested

Lack of seasonal workers, triggered by Brexit and then the invasion of Ukraine, has cost farmers hundreds of thousands of pounds in dead crops and is expected to hit this year’s domestic produce, stated a recent report.

Sky News reported on Monday (4) that shortfall in the overall number of seasonal worker visas granted by the Home Office, delays in processing those visas and a collapse in the number of Ukrainian workers coming to the UK after the Russian invasion are contributing to further lack of labour, leading to concerns of ready crops going to waste.

Last year more than 60 percent of workers on seasonal visas were from Ukraine and 8 percent from Russia. While adult Ukrainian men are unable to leave the country due to current conditions, visa applications of Russian workers have been cancelled, stated the report, without explanation by recruitment agencies, despite there being no explicit ban on Russians working in the UK.

Owing to labour shortage, there are now concerns over the harvest of the current berry season, and the forthcoming apple and pear season. The availability of workers in the UK pre-Brexit times made labour-intensive crops such as berries more viable. The British Berry Growers Association says that more than £36 million worth of crop was destroyed in 2021 because it could not be harvested.

The report revealed that in 2021, around 30,000 seasonal worker visas were made available. This year an extra 10,000 were granted, 8,000 of which went to horticulture and 2,000 to ease production problems in the poultry industry.

The government plans to reduce the number of seasonal worker visas available next year before phasing them out altogether in 2024, with a view to domestic workers and automation, including fruit picking robots, filling the gap.

The National Farmers' Union (NFU) warns the plan is unrealistic and risks a contraction of the horticulture sector just as the government is proposing an expansion as part of its recently published food strategy.

"We have a very low level of unemployment, we have 4 percent unemployed and millions of vacancies so it is unrealistic for it to be delivered from the domestic workforce when there are plenty of permanent roles,” Tom Bradshaw, deputy president of the NFU, said.