Fruit picking Jobs

[billysboy]

With so many Fruit Picking Jobs available aibu to think that a few of the people already in this country would want to take them up

It feels as if we are paying 1m to stay at home rather than take up this work
Its hard work no doubt but also pays £10-15 an hour is it beneath too many people?

[quietheart]

£10 to £15 an hour is a myth. They are paid by what they pick and a lot of it is thrown away, its quite possible to be paid £10 for a mornings back breaking work in the pouring rain or hot sun. The living conditions are not good.

There are Eastern Europeans who need to work to enable them to stay in the UK. They will put up with the worst working conditions to do this. It is slave labour.

[YeOldeTrout]

There was a potato sorting job I nearly applied for, about 6 miles away, but then my nominal employer (who I have no contract with) asked me to hang on. They are asking me to contribute to a report this morning to summarise what I've been doing that is cv19 response work (a lot, arguably).

I keep looking but the only agricultural jobs advertised in my county are far away and require an 8-16 week commitment. They never seem to say they are live-in so would require driving back and forth (seems like). I'd love to do something PT (2-3 days/week?) that I could travel to reach from home, even if it was only paying £8/hr (as they do). I am tempted to go live in a caravan, anyway, but I can't figure out where those jobs are advertised.

There are graveyard shift supermarket picker jobs about 10 miles away. Maybe.... but I can't get motivated to do it full time.

[Springersrock]

My daughter and her friends all applied for local fruit picking jobs and none of them heard a thing back

[DeathByBoredom]

I used to do this back when it was a student type job. Hard work but fine.

Farmers don't want local workers, or even uk workers. They charge £50 per person per week for a caravan for 3-4 people. So £800 a month they get back from their workforce for a crappy tin hut. What uk born worker is going to find that a good deal when they could stay in their much nicer house and work at tesco for the same/higher pay?

It's like the 19th century all over - work at a large company, get paid in tokens you then spend in the company shop and on rent in the company house. A type of slavery.

[Pumpkintopf]

I think Leflic has it spot on -


If British farms weren’t having to sell to supermarket at such low prices , supermarkets just import more from countries that can grow it cheaper.
So if you want training, decent accommodation , flex hours (!) it would need the British public to only buy British and pay £10 a punnet for strawberries.

We pay I think one of the lowest % of household income for food in this country, which is facilitated by low cost imports and low cost imported efficient experienced labour. I agree if we want to change the model we have to be willing to pay more.

[Meandmypoodle]

@TheMagiciansMewTwo I suspect the sheer quantity of fruit grown in the parts of the UK is the problem. I read somewhere that we will need full time 75 000 pickers you cant just do it at the weekend. Cherries for example are picked over a period of a few days to meet supermarket requirements. Kent, the garden of England (where I used to live) produces 90% or cherries and plums, the biggest apple and pear farming the UK is based in Kent. As I said above fruit pickers are not paid an hourly rate they are paid by amount, the first year the pickers don't make good money because they are learning how to do it but they know that as the years go by they'll get quicker and earn more money so they come back year after year.

[Doubletrouble99]

I think the posters who state no Brits are applying have no idea what they are talking about. I wish people would stop spouting rubbish. Thousands have applied.
It's ideal work for students and school leavers who wanted to take a year out and work abroad but now can't. A charity who arranges work for students abroad - Concordia- has changed to fulfilling fruit/veg picking in the UK and had 10,000 apply in one week. As has been said not everybody will want to live away from home but it certainly isn't true to say that no one wants to do the work. I think it will actually be very good for the students that take these jobs. It will show them how to work in a team, gain lasting friendships and give them an appreciation of hard work. As we move forward with Brexit this is how we are going to have to fulfil these jobs in future.
Farmers also need people with experience, tractor drivers and these experienced in the use of farm machinery. That is why they have flown in people from Romania. Many of them have the experience and once up and running will be teaching the Brits. to do the basic picking.

[Rosehip10]

Many farms boast they employ a "welfare officer" - generally a native speaker of the language of the main part of the workforce - the "welfare" they do is the bollocking/dismisals when target production rates are not met. Workers are constantly reminded that there are people waiting to take a job if you don't shape up.

I think many people in the UK still think that agricultrue in the UK is like Enid Blyton's "Willow farm", they don't want to know how modern food production happens (meat and arable) and the good and bad of agrirculture since the second agricultrual revolution.

[Meandmypoodle]

"We pay I think one of the lowest % of household income for food in this country, which is facilitated by low cost imports and low cost imported efficient experienced labour. I agree if we want to change the model we have to be willing to pay more."
^ This and it applies to meat and dairy as well. As long as we demand cheap food it will come at a price to those who produce it/pick it.

[CatherineOfAragonsPomegranate]

the Guardian piece actually goes on to say that the Romanian workers coming in are ‘key skilled’!

Yep the Romanians are 'skilled' and hardworking. But the British don't have the skills at all. Oh... but we haven't got the time or incination to teach or hire them and get them 'skilled'......because they're just feckless Brits!

If we were prepared to pay more for food, and avoided supermarkets, used our local high streets, lived on what is in season instead of wanting strawberries in January and other things that are imported out if season, we could have a better British farming industry and workers could be paid more

I don't get this concept of 'wanting to pay less' for food. Please someone explain.

Who do you know who doesn't want to be able to afford better quality food? I'd love to buy organic locally sourced fruit and veg and definitely 100% grass fed beef and poultry. Unfortunately the government doesn't want to pay people enough to afford such luxuries whilst simultaneously keeping the roof over their heads. The reality for many people has been that even travelling to work can be more than their hours pay.

I do sometimes wonder what world people live in.

[LaCroixStOuen]

I did it in the 80s after seeing an ad in the local paper.

Got dropped off, earned 60p a bucket picking soft fruit then walked 6 miles home.

Had enough after 2 weeks.

[borntobequiet]

I don’t think anyone who has done this would ask what’s wrong with it.

It’s hard, monotonous physical work
It takes time and practice to get good enough at it to be efficient
You often have to live on site

As someone who worked casually like this all over Europe when young, I know I couldn’t do it now in my later years, despite being relatively fit and healthy. If I were under 35, single, with no dependents or health issues, I might give it a go.

[isabellerossignol]

We pay I think one of the lowest % of household income for food in this country

I know anecdote is not data and all that, but I think when you go abroad and go into a supermarket, it suddenly becomes very clear just how cheap food is in the UK.

[EmpressMcSchnozzle]

Have you ever tried it yourself, out of curiosity? You have to be really fit, very observant, very dexterous and very quick. You also have to be able to work in awful conditions a lot of the time. It would be great if you could go and try it for a day or even just a few hours and then report back on your findings.

[Meandmypoodle]

"I think many people in the UK still think that agriculture in the UK is like Enid Blyton's "Willow farm", they don't want to know how modern food production happens (meat and arable) and the good and bad of agriculture since the second agricultural revolution."
^ and this. The fruit farm I lived on the boss used to say she has and would employ English workers but they don't stick it because its exceedingly hard work very long hours and shit money. £3K if you Romanian (and you're a very fast picker ) for 5 months work 7 days a week may see good but most UK people want considerably more that that.

[Picamyhoney]

You going to sign upOP?

It's hard, SKILLED, work - you have to work fast with little breaks, and know what you're looking for. You get paid by the weight of what you've picked, pick a pollinator by accident and you've lost the whole crate.

you start early - 7am, tricky if you have kids/family, work a long 12 hour shift.
You have to be on site, or live close. The farms are in the middle of nowhere.
So you have to be - available on site for the entire picking season, fit and strong ( someone who had an office job isn't going to be able to cope), experienced. And it needs to be picked within a time frame.

So of course they're going to get in experienced hands rather than try to train up a bunch of ex-office workers, and students.

[cathyandclare]

We live rurally and DD could drive to pick, so she looked into it- but they were only interested in people with picking or tractor driving experience at the time.

[Supersimkin2]

You need to be strong as an ox and fast as a ninja to reach the targets.

[QuixoticQuokka]

I know anecdote is not data and all that, but I think when you go abroad and go into a supermarket, it suddenly becomes very clear just how cheap food is in the UK. I agree, food is cheap here. I've lived on benefits as a young solo parent and even then we could afford plenty of fruit and vegetables. It'd expensive to get a takeaway or get a drink in a pub but basic food to cook from scratch is very cheap.

[Sh05]

I haven't trailed through the whole thread so this may have already been said but they need some experienced people to be able to train the inexperienced. I believe that's what's happening here, the couple of hundred Romanians are experienced, probably come every year so they will train up the new recruits.

[Meandmypoodle]

And this living on site are paying for their food and accommodation out of their not exactly fantastic wages.
work a long 12 hour shift
And the rest the apple pickers where I lived used to start at 6 30 and pick till 9-10 pm in June.

[Trimalata]

The best laugh I've had recently was someone saying they'd quite happily do it as they love going to PYO farms! Yes, because pottering around with a punnet for an hour is exactly the same as modern industrial farming...

[Sh05]

Oh and the application makes it sound dull and repetitive because it probably is and they don't want to train people up only for them to drop out because they can't take the boring nature of the work

[dottiedodah]

For all these people wondering why foreign workers have been called in, have they applied at all I wonder? Unless you are unemployed then Furlough doesnt cover working elsewhere as far as I know.Also how would anyone be able to travel to a farm miles from anywhere and back under the current rules? Fruit picking is not easy ,and foreign workers are more experienced in this line of work.

[HedgehogHotel]

I know someone who applied and then turned down an offered position. Why? It would have broken her in middle age.

The jobs are in the middle of nowhere, the working hours are from 6:00am to 6:00pm (yes, 12 hour shifts, don't include travel time to get there/get home), 5 or 6 days a week for 3 months straight. Bare bottom 'living' wage as they call it in this country. 'Bonuses' are only for picking more than they expected you to pick, which isn't likely for new pickers and older pickers.

I couldn't do that either without seriously hurting myself, probably permanently with some of my preexisting problems at my age, and I'm lucky I don't have to.