Speaker A
Hundreds of hectares of salad, but here whole fields of this Kent-grown crop have this year gone to waste. All because, for the second year in a row, there's a huge shortage of people to pick it. We probably wasted about between 50 and 20 of this year's crop. I've probably wasted about 150 tons of crops so far this year. This year, yeah. The Eastern Europeans who were picking this baby gem lettuce pre-Brexit haven't returned. Instead, farmers have had to look further afield to the Far East, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. So why not employ Brits? There's been a mantra of trying to bring British people in. We've tried that hard. Absolute no-go. Just not happening. We've been in engagement with May Stone Job Center for four years, and we've had not a single person through it. Not a single person. So please stop giving me that rhetoric because it's absolute garbage. One hundred miles away in West Sussex, one of the country's largest vegetable growers has faced another uphill battle. Finding labour has been exceptionally difficult this year. There have been delays in people coming on the seasonal workers program. The seasonal workers program, which offers short-term visas for farm workers, gave UK growers the opportunity to invite 30,000 migrants to work in Britain this year, with the option for 10,000 extra if needed. The government is yet to agree to allow the extra workers in. Farmers say they must do so now before it's too late. Last year, a staggering 600 tons of crop was thrown away on this one farm. The battle to find labourers has been almost as challenging this year, and farmers say unless more seasonal migrants are allowed in to pick this, broccoli fields like this one will cease to exist in the UK. To recruit somebody, to get all of their paperwork in order, and then to move them from their home country to the UK probably takes a minimum two to three weeks. And crops don't wait for anybody. They keep growing, and once they grow beyond a certain point, they're out of specification for UK retail, and they will go to waste. The UK government acknowledges the farming industry is facing labour challenges and says it's extended the seasonal workers visa route until the end of 2024. The government also says it's working towards attracting UK workers to the sector. Luke Hanrahan, Euro News.
