@MaxNormal perhaps if you're a gang master and operating contrary to modern slavery laws that's what it is.
We pay by the hour, provide welfare and staff facilities as required. The work can obviously be cold and wet, no one but no one can manipulate the great British weather and a cold easterly wind - that's the nature of agriculture unfortunately. It is hard physical work, as is a lot of agriculture- it's a primary industry. The reason it has generally been outsourced is because our county population (Lincolnshire) is sparse and doesn't really have a wealth of seasonal workers wanting to work outside in April weather. I suspect that might change now, temporarily, but the very sad fact is that a lot of people in the UK just don't have the work ethic to do this, especially with the welfare state as it has been.
Agriculture needs unravelling a bit more and hopefully this current crisis we find ourselves in will focus our attention to how vital it is to have a secure food production going forwards.
Subsidies exist because food prices for staples have remained static for many decades - before this pandemic, winter wheat was a similar £/tonne as it was in the 1980s, but overheads and commodities have risen dramatically in the same time. If agriculture was self sustaining and workers could be paid to reflect the gritty job they're actually doing, it would be a more attractive position in the main. But the focus has been on greening and not good production which, in arable Lincolnshire, is a very difficult line to tread.