It is impossible to find enough British labourers prepared to work harvesting fruit and vegetables, which could result in more food production moving overseas. If tighter immigration controls were brought it, the lack of access to labour would see British fruit and veg vanishing from supermarkets, say farmers.
“If you took migrant workers out of the supply chain you would within five days have no fresh British produce on the supermarket shelves,” said Guy Poskitt, who grows 80,000 tons of carrots and parsnips a year in Yorkshire.
“My business would have to close, we could not serve our customers without the availability of migrant workers,” he told Sky News1. Non-UK-born workers make up 65% of the agricultural workforce in Britain, compared to 5% in other industries.
The Farmers Weekly2 reports that 9% of growers experienced problems recruiting enough labour in 2015, according to an NFU survey, and some 66% expect reductions in labour availability by 2018, with 43% anticipating labour shortages. About 90% of British fruit, vegetables and salads are picked, graded and packed by 60,000-70,000 workers from overseas, according to the Guardian3. Angus Davison, chairman at Haygrove, a major berry and cherry producer, employing 800 seasonal workers, told the Guardian that without foreign labourers, their growing would “move to the continent”.
“We wouldn’t be able to operate here in the UK because we would not be able to harvest the crops
