Fruit farmer's fears for crop

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