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.

The Central/East Europeans don't want to come here anymore.

They are pissed off by British wankers telling them they're not welcome, being abused in Fenland pubs by local shitheads for daring to speak to each other in their own language after a long shift.

You sows. You reaps.

I’m glad that the farmers who are treating their workers dreadfully have stopped growing tbh . I guess we’ll be looking at either importing it or growing it ourselves then .

Farm workers have always been treated badly - especially in relation to tied cottages.

*The Central/East Europeans don't want to come here anymore.

They are pissed off by British wankers telling them they're not welcome, being abused in Fenland pubs by local shitheads for daring to speak to each other in their own language after a long shift.

You sows. You reaps.*

And many who didn't leave due to Brexit now evacuated through embassies

I got an application pack for fruit picking local to me. After reading the working conditions, I won't be applying.
Minimum 8 hour days often going to 12hours plus, 6 days a week. No start time or finish time guaranteed. The accommodation sounds horrible, 6 people to a caravan.
I have worked on farms before, so I know that those hours would make me too tired and leave not enough time for my other commitments. If they would offer part time hours I would apply. But I would never stay in the accommodation provided.

Very true Rosehip . Thankfully I live somewhere which had a Land Act enabling tenant farmers to buy the land the farmed . Farm tenancies are outdated . One family owning thousands of acres for generations is just wrong .
The population should be fighting to change the rules of land ownership. It should be owned by those farming it.

yes years ago as a child I did potato picking for a small cash in hand fee . Really hard work . I am sure its probably slightly more automated now . But due to H&S I am sure not allowed now. But never did me any harm.

Students will be available for the summer and earlier for some as a lot of unis have cancelled Y1 exams. Most of them will be intending to travel (not happening) or take summer jobs (not happening) so they'll be glad for the interaction, the opportunity to get out and about and for any money they make whilst working.

I often day dream of an opportunity to live in the middle of nowhere in a community for about 3 months, working outdoors in the summer.

You sound exceptionally naive, this is not gently picking a bit of fruit and spending your days off gently relaxing in rolling countryside.

This is full-on hard labour in polytunnels, living in shitty caravans or portacabins on an industrial farm with loads of chemicals sprayed on the fruit.

Surely it would make sense to have set working hours on farms . Working 6 days a week is ridiculous for one. Expectations will have to change if they want their fruit picked .

Unfortunately and worryingly we are now reaping what we have sewn. This was coming even without coronavirus.

"Expectations will have to change if they want their fruit picked ."

Yes this may be the case.

Unfortunately and worryingly we are now reaping what we have sewn. This was coming even without coronavirus.

This is my worry. And I don't think it's going to go back to how we lived before because we will make changes to how we live too late.

The farmers should be changing their expectations. 5 days a week for people, shift work kind of thing, just don't have them working weekends at all. Provide transport, and accommodation could be used in the form of the pubs and hotels that are currently unused? Least it's nicer then than a caravan.

This will have to be funded by the government and yeah fruit and veg prices will rise a bit. But least we won't be hungry.

What @Greysparkles said. "easier for the farmers to employ and exploit many Eastern Europeon workers. Who would work for below minimum wage, often in shared accommodation being bussed from farm to farm.
No need to worry about those pesky workers rights for those guys!"

I may have imagined it but I also thought that changes to benefits made it more precarious for people to dip in and our of seasonal work. Better to know where you are on regular benefit income than swopping between seasonal jobs maybe.

We have underpaid for our food for years and now it's coming back to bite us on the backside.

@megletthesecond easier for the farmers to employ and exploit many Eastern European workers No need to worry about those pesky workers rights for those guys!

See my previous post. It is 100 years since seasonal agricultural work was done by British workers. Farmers have been exploiting seasonal workers for centuries - but since the end of WW2, people have had the mobility to move elsewhere for other work which is better paid and less backbreaking. As for workers rights - these are supposed to be controlled by the UK government agencies such as the Border Force and HMRC. If gangmasters are paying less than minimum wage, they should be prosecuted.

@SudokuQueen
The farmers should be changing their expectations. 5 days a week for people, shift work kind of thing, just don't have them working weekends at all.

Crops need to be picked when they are ripe and ready - regardless of whether we're talking about raspberries, rapeseed or wheat. Crops grown for the supermarkets - salad, soft fruits etc - need to be harvested to meet the demand from the supermarkets, whose demand can change by the day depending on the weather, Bank Holidays etc. If a field has to be harvested within an 18-hour timeslot, either the work gets done or the crop rots.

@Gingerkittykat You sound exceptionally naive, this is not gently picking a bit of fruit and spending your days off gently relaxing in rolling countryside

I have done harder work than this before. It is you who sounds exceptionally naive as you seem to think that hard, back breaking work, the kind that MOST humans have to do to survive on this earth, is beyond you and other British folk. Hundreds of people leave their families in other countries to do this work - as horrible as you think it might be. That should tell you something.

Crops need to be picked when they are ripe and ready - regardless of whether we're talking about raspberries, rapeseed or wheat. Crops grown for the supermarkets - salad, soft fruits etc - need to be harvested to meet the demand from the supermarkets, whose demand can change by the day depending on the weather, Bank Holidays etc. If a field has to be harvested within an 18-hour timeslot, either the work gets done or the crop rots.

I'm only saying 5 days because a lot of people who are out of jobs used to just work Mon to Fri jobs. So childcare would be easier to arrange on those days. If we include weekends it gets harder. Some will be able to, a lot won't. It might be that some crop does rot but the majority would be saved which is better than nothing.

You may need to employ more people if the workers pick more slowly, do 5 day rotations etc.

More expensive, yes, but on the other hand you create employment, and have at least some of the fruit picked.

Great post @Purpletigers 👏

This is an interesting read

I almost applied for a picking job nearby before this kicked off and didn't because it was a 40 hour week. Impossible for me to do with a dc and studies. Now it isn't even a question of being able to do it what with dc off school and no local support.

I can understand the locality issue but I agree a campaign to get uk residents to do it might do some good over shipping people in under the circumstances.

You may need to employ more people if the workers pick more slowly, do 5 day rotations etc.
More expensive, yes, but on the other hand you create employment, and have at least some of the fruit picked.

Two obvious problems - where are all these people to be found and where will they live? They are not living in sufficient numbers in the rural areas, so they will need to be recruited from somewhere else, and then housed close enough to the farms to make the exercise viable, or transported to the areas from the towns and cities each day - all adding to the cost.

Before the Eastern Europeans arrived it was common to see gangmasters picking up workers from the cities and bussing them out for a day's work. For example, people were getting into minibuses in Birmingham at 4 a.m. and being driven to farms in East Anglia or the West Country to do a 10 hour shift, then being dropped off late at night. All piecework. All cash in hand. All illegal.

I'm always confused about the shortage of fruit/veg picker stories.
I live in a very agricultural area, but There are no such jobs in my area (says job centre search engine).
I severely wonder where are these jobs advertised.
I'm officially if not technically unemployed as of 1 April. I would need a live-in job if nothing available within 10 miles.

I live in one of the biggest areas for fruit and veg picking in the uk. The gang masters still pick eastern europeans up in the nearby city and bus them to the fields. Or they did last year.

I do think it should be possible to mobilise British people to do this. There are lots in the South West who will be out of work/not working at the moment due to the loss of tourism etc.

However, they will also need to be treated fairly and equitably by the farmers who employ them- given their labour is needed, their wages should be higher than usual. This may have to be passed on to the consumer in price rises. If this is done by volunteers, business owners (and I include supermarkets in that) shouldn't be allowed to profit from their work.

I do think it's interesting that the knee jerk reaction is "fly people in", not "get British workers to do it". I think that says something about how these workers are often treated.