Fruit and veg to run out if farms don't get pickers

[SudokuQueen]

www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/28/fruit-and-veg-will-run-out-unless-britain-charters-planes-to-fly-in-farm-workers-from-eastern-europe

Why do we actually need to fly people in from other countries when there are a ton of people not working now due to corona killing off their jobs?

Unemployment has gone up by tens of thousands in a week. Just a week. It will only increase.

Food pickers are keyworkers so can go out to do this. Why can't we just get the new unemployed to do this? Yeah it might not be the amount of money you were getting before, but I bet its better than benefits.

What people coming in from abroad? They won’t be and farms are recruiting.

Take cover

If you were trying to fed your family, would you deliberately work harder, for less money and less time with the family, for a job with zero prospects?

Can't say I know many people who would...

Pickers need to be paid more. The government should offer help to farmers to pay for that.

In this very out of the ordinary time I wouldn't object to the government continuing to pay JSA rate to those employed to harvest food on top of their usual wages. I don't know if that will be enough to encourage those out of work at the moment to undertake the roles though.

Unless people are conscripted to do the work there will be plenty saying it's fine for other people to do it but will find all sorts of reasons why they and their family members shouldn't have to.

Having worked on a farm I've seen first hand that agencies are supplying staff send people of all ethnicities and the British workers were almost always sent home some after a few hours some after a day or two.. The farmers/managers stating they don't have the work ethic and don't pick as much as the European counterparts.

I also heard them requesting non British workers to be supplied.

I left the firm I was with as they were appalling to work for.

Yeah if they paid them the jsa plus the wages, least then it gets food out there to the supermarkets.

At this rate, all that will happen is more panic buying, no fruit and veg at all eventually because some won't do the work. Doesn't that seem a tad stupid?

There are plenty of people who want to drive somewhere, be out in the fresh air and get some exercise because the rules don't apply to them. Perhaps they can contribute to the national effort while they're at it and help with fruit & veg picking.

That only works though if the hordes of unemployed are in the same location as the farms needing pickers. You can't order unemployed shop workers from inner city Birmingham out to the Cotswolds to pick strawberries.

A lot of the picker jobs are remote, live in, crap hours (start at dawn finish at dusk) for childcare... and the list goes on.

I dare say to keep the speed they work at now social distancing would be near impossible. So one parent would need to move to the farm for the entire isolation and hope that no one else got sick up there.. miles from hospitals and probably in a room with others n no way of actually isolating.

There’s a reason there’s not many brits willing to do it in the first place never mind people going from a comfy job on good pay

How about they treat people well? They got thousands of volunteers for the NHS, can we not have volunteers for veg picking?

Locally to us, there’s been lots of adverts for fruit pickers, needed from May onwards,

@carsforlife

It's kind of that though, temporarily until normality hits us again, or we all starve as a nation, well the rich won't I guess. I know which one I prefer.

Even before the virus, the UK unemployed were very reluctant to pick fruit and veg , hence, Eastern Europeans were offered the opportunity.
Various parts of the country , including Kent where I am, have struggled for years to get enough pickers. Many farms and orchards have had to leave their crops to rot as no one will pick.
It’s back breaking work that needs to be done in all weathers.
Don’t forget that many unemployed people don’t live anywhere near a farm and transport to these farms is probably non existent as well as being too expensive, given the very low pay.

Not sure what the answer is to be honest.

Students seem like one possible source of labour - I've got a fit, healthy DD, chances her internship will fall through. Not sure but I think she'd rather pick produce than sit on her arse indoors all summer.

The 'live in' might appeal to students who'd rather be with other young people than with their parents.

I did one day of picking once, years ago. Did not make quota and I have never forgotten the unbearably itchy ankles. Begged my ganger to find me a factory job instead and he did because "you were shit at that". Eight hours on a frozen food line was bliss in comparison.

DH did a lot of this work when he first came to the UK and is experiencing a certain amount of schadenfreude right now. Three and half years of being told he and his like were unwanted job stealing country ruining scum and suddenly, oh, maybe you contributed quite a lot to the essential running of the country after all?

If we still lived in Fenland he'd sign up to do it again right now, as would most of our friends if they hadn't packed up and left thanks to the shit that's been spouted at them since 2016.

Just discussing this on another thread (can't remember which one!). I think the plan may be to have the workers 'quarantine' for 14 days before starting to work and live in the accommodation.

I hope that they are paid jobs as usual, not voluntary work - I know it is not highly paid, but could be a stop-gap for unemployed hospitality and catering staff who can live away from home. It is full time, hard, work.

And don’t forget that the prices paid to farmers by supermarkets makes it nigh on impossible for farmers to be able to pay a decent living wage.
I certainly wouldn’t pay £10 for a punnet of strawberries or a fiver for a bag of apples.

I know the local farms up here provide transport, dunno about down south though. Yeah it's shit work, but it's temporary and in this current climate do we really have much if a choice?

I think to be honest, since they won't be getting Eastern Europeans to do it, I think a lot of unemployed will be getting told by people in the job centre that they either apply for it or stop claiming. It will end up being a case of 'do it or get no money' which they can do.

Yes Erroll, I was thinking of students as well - the non-essential retail and hospitality/catering jobs won't/may not be there this year, and there are many students who rely on earning in the summer to top up the maintenance loan.

If we still lived in Fenland

They need to reopen the Cambridge colleges and organise transport into the fens.

My DM did teacher training at Homerton in the war, she did apple picking (up a tree while warplanes flew over) and fire watching while she was there.

Are you volunteering OP?

I would have thought transport would be a problem. Whenever I see fruit/veg pickers in action, they have been transported there in fleets of double-decker busses.

Not easy to practise social isolation in a double-decker bus.

I wouldn't look to students right now tbh. That's a VERY angry group of people now after paying 9k to be massively fuck over this year.....