A Shropshire farmer today expressed fears he will lose thousands of pounds worth of crops this summer because of a shortage of fruit pickers.
Michael Bowden said a labour shortage in June meant his Ashford Carbonell farm lost eight acres of strawberries and he worried it is set for more losses.
He partly blames changes to the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme, which is not open to non-EU workers.
The Government said it was “phasing out low-skilled migration from outside the EU”. It wants farms to use EU workers. The Saws scheme is now restricted to 16,250 Romanians and Bulgarians, new members of the EU.
The Government said migrants from EU countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic would plug the labour gap.
But Mr Bowden, whose farm turns over about £1 million a year, said many people from Eastern Europe were “going home” because the pound had weakened against their own currencies.
He said the eight acres of fruit lost in June was “a lot in the context of our business”.
“We grow about 60 acres of strawberries and raspberries, but they will just rot in the fields unless we can get more pickers in,” he said.
“It’s a long season and we usually get about 70 to 80 pickers, but they’re fewer and farther between.
“A lot of them have been over here for four or five years and they have made their money and are going back home.
“We used to be able to attract local workers a few years ago, but we can’t seem to get them in at all now.
“The bottom line is the Government needs to let the horticulture industry issue more permits.” He said many people in Bulgaria wanted to and work under Saws but were not being allocated under the quota.
The Home Office says it was changing the rules because “businesses should hire those close to home first”.
The National Farmers’ Union says the rules will exacerbate the labour shortage caused when the Saws scheme cut its quota from 25,000 to 16,520 in 2004.
By Jonathan Wood
24 Comments
Plenty of healthy people locked up in prison for hours on end with their play stations, get them out and work em!!
Clearly, Mr. Bowden is not offering an attractive package to potential employees. His inability to judge the labour market and attract staff will cost him money in ruined crops. This sounds like a typical false economy which is prevalent in British farming.
Cheap food! Great..jobs for our fellow compatriots, except ‘we’ won’t/don’t want to go out and do the physical work. Problem.
So..do we pay a realistic price for a product once seen as an up-market luxury {think Wimbledon} or do we continue to mutter under our breath about rampant immigration and jobs being taken from under our noses.
I assume the BNP are more than happy to pay up for much dearer food with much less choice, surely it’ll all be in their ‘manifesto’. Won’t it?
How can it be, that with so many people on benefits in Shropshire, it is not possible for local pickers to be recruited for this work? Why aren’t the Jobcentres busy ringing every able-bodied person on their books and claiming benefits, offering them work and expecting them to take it or suspending payment? Saving a valuable food crop AND reducing reliance on the taxpayer - surely that’s the way to go, no need for immigrant labour.
easy solution, put a sign up, pick your own, half price, yum yum, ill come
Dear Merc
What’s the BNP got to do with fruit picking
Tired of sad socialists, the end is nigh!!
ok plenty on benefits who cant find work yes right , but the main advise pay a decent hourly rate mr farmer .
I agree I have picked fruit before when I was uni and for a huge tray of fruit picked - the picker only received 1.50 - this ame tray would then be old for about 30 pounds if each pud is worth 2- 4 pounds
If farmers paid more for fruiti picking then they would find plenty of people willing to pick fruit at the weekend. or weekdays
bovvvered - make some jam
There seems no shortage of strawberries in the shops, British ones at that and this case seems like a farmer jumping on the bandwaggon of cheap labour by foreigners and planting acres in anticipation. I have no sympathy whatsoever for him, his expectations did not pay off.
Normally I have a great deal of sympathy for farmers, having one in the family. This one got what he deserved and for once I can agree with Government policy in keeping non-EU cheap foreign labour out of the country. In effect, this guy wanted to make a fast buck.
How about getting kids to pick. There is a shortage of jobs for young teenagers. Couldn’t they work during the summer hols or weekends?
Sarah: your idea is wonderful. However, those days are gone, I’m afraid. Children and young adults are not interested in hard or manual work. They are given too much too young from their parents. Maybe this is a reality check for our society?
Around 5% of the population of this country are unemployed. Many more are hidden unemployed thanks to the government’s statistics methods.
No work. No benefits. Get them out there and get them picking! And no scrumping!
The sad reality is that young people do not want to do this work. I do like the comment that the farmer should pay higher wages. Staff doing the fruit picking earn a very good wage please don’t listen to nonsense about them earning under the minimum wage, no farmer would ever take that risk, and they want to treat their workers right so that they continue to work for them. Perhaps the consumer should pay more for this fruit to enable farmers and growers to actually make a profit???
This will fit perfectly into the governments strategy to get the ill (and lazy) to earn their dole, what better for mental health and obese patients to get some fresh air and gentle exercise and eat the odd strawberry on their way? Im sure farmers would not turn down, free (or very cheap atleast) labour and we all need cheap food now oils so expensive
BACK TO THE LAND I say especially for the dole q lot
bring back the land girls and the bevin boys, they would have this all sorted. bending one’s back appears not to be an option these days
I would love a job picking fruit. I can’t understand why we don’t have pick your own anymore.
Why is this in the news??
Clearly its a business problemss, like thousands of other business problems, seems to me that someone feels they are losing out on cheap labour!
Deal with it in a business manner and make changes, why do people want the rest of us to know their problems….sympathy maybe?
We are are getting worse at this kind of thing.
Saraf F if fruit farmers pay a good wage then please explain how the majority of the fruit pickers are now foreign cheap labour porepared to work for peanuts.
I have also picked fruit when I was at uni and beleive me you could earn a lot more working in a bar or shop and the work is a lot easier.
typical farmers, over paid by my taxes, why do we subsidise them so much when food prices are so high!!!??? Suerly we need a regulator of price, not a cap or a subsidy, this is loony, we are skint, they are loaded, im goign to grow my own, get an allotment that’s the way forward for this country
its all the Eu’s fault, jonny foreigner is taking over, we need to bring back hanging or else we’re all doomed
There are plenty of able bodied people on the dole who could do this, and I’m sure the farmer would pay them minimum wage. Trouble is it’s not worth them doing it because they would lose not just their job seekers allowance, but all their housing benefits, free prescriptions, etc. etc. No incentive there from the government and no help for the farmer either. How about using the people who beg on the streets?
gutted greedy
Just after the war, as youngsters (in school time) we were made to go potato picking. Huge numbers of us would be driven to a farm (in my case, for two years running it was Wheathill Farm near Wellington) and each would be given about a 30m drill to pick. One would be lucky to complete this before the tractor came around again and the “picking” started again. We had to provide our own sandwiches but the farmers wife gave us tea or milk. For being out in all weathers without shelter, breaking our backs and hardly able to stand upright at the end of the day we were paid 3 shillings and ninepence (3/9p) a day which even for those days was akin to “slavery”. All sorts of excuses would be found these days as to why similar schemes could not be done, not least, the hours available in the curriculum, mummy wouldn’t allow it and “elf and safety” would find some reason why it couldn’t be done. And again, we as kids didn’t fancy eating raw potatoes but strawberries are another matter. The profits and the fruit would disapear before the farmers eyes. If we dictate to other countries about employing child labour just think of the protests from the soft liberals if we ourselves did it.