MANY WILL mock a soft fruit grower from the balmy Angus coast when he writes about adversity – and normally I wouldn’t blame them.

In the past decade, soft fruit sales have grown 150%, while many other sectors of agriculture have struggled. I am very conscious of the problems faced elsewhere, partly because I am also a mixed farmer growing cereals and potatoes as well as running 180 Blue-Grey cows with my father and senior partner, who is still well worth his corn aged 80 – he also manages a flock of 1100 Cheviot ewes in Glen Lyon.

Don’t get me wrong, adversity isn’t always a bad thing. As well as being a positive driver for increased efficiency and yield, it can control oversupply.

A good example was the apocalyptic summer of 2012, resulting in potato prices as epic as the weather. Happy days (though, admittedly, not for most).

However, if the hard times are prolonged and relentless, adversity can become debilitating, leaving only enough margin to live on, with nothing left for reinvestment or to put aside in reserve.

Overproduction, leading to lower prices, is hitting farm incomes hard across all sectors (the Scottish Government’s Farm Business Survey shows a shocking 48% drop in the average income in one year) and there is undoubtedly going to be much less financial support from all UK and Scottish governments after 2022, whatever their colour and whatever they tell you now.

So, we can have good and bad adversity. But the version now facing horticulture is downright ugly because it is so unavoidable and unnecessary – and it threatens one of the few sectors of agriculture that is currently thriving.

Here is a quick summary:

* Scotland produces a third of the UK’s soft fruit.

* Scottish soft fruit and veg combined have sales in excess of £230m annually, which is more than both sheep and potatoes.

* Scottish horticulture employs around 15,000 seasonal workers to harvest and pack the produce.

But here's the rub. The phenomenal growth in the soft fruit sector in particular over the past decade has been fundamentally driven by free access to migrant workers from the EU. Without them we would not have a business.

Almost everything in the fresh section of your local supermarket (as well as much of the meat aisle) has been harvested, picked or packed by East Europeans.

On our farm we employ up to 250 and 50% are women. They often leave children behind with grandparents to come and work here. Most return home at the end of the season, although around 5% are full time.

They pay tax and NI, and although most will claim back the tax when they return home, the NI is not repaid. On average, the nett NI contribution is £2000, including employer’s NI.

I have huge admiration for these hard working, decent people, and I was dismayed to hear Ian Duncan Smith referring to them as low-skilled and low-value on Newsnight the other week. You try picking fruit or cutting broccoli all day long IDS.

I know what it’s like, I spent much of my teenage summer holidays doing it and it is skilled, hard physical work, and not for everyone. And, just to be clear, our friends from abroad are not undercutting local workers – they are paid in excess of the National Living Wage because, in agriculture, this is gold plated by the SAWB. For example, overtime rates under SAWB rules are 1.5 times basic, as opposed to 1.25 times under NLW.

The top workers consistently earn £10 or more per hour and none are paid less than £7.50. We take on any locals who want to come and work seasonally, but we no longer actively seek them, as unemployment is low.

The Conservatives have promised a return to the SAW scheme, but whatever is put in place will be a backward step from the current situation. Even their own EFRA committee is aware that a storm is brewing – in their report 'Feeding the nation: Labour constraints', they sum up by saying: “We do not share the confidence of the Government that the sector does not have a problem. On the contrary, evidence submitted to this inquiry suggests the current problem is in danger of becoming a crisis if urgent measures are not taken to fill the gaps in labour supply."

British Summer Fruits has just released its comprehensive Anderson Report on the implications of restricted seasonal worker numbers. Unsurprisingly, it has reached the same conclusions.

The consequences for the industry from not having free movement of labour would be devastating, reducing UK production, UK taxation income, and UK fruit consumption due to reduced availability and increased prices.

The increased price would not be good – that would suck in more imports, resulting in even higher prices, and bigger food mileage.

The Scottish Government has also been looking at the issue with a paper 'Options for differentiating the UK’s immigration system', by Dr Eve Hepburn.

There are various precedents, from Canada to Australia, for having regional variations to immigration which would allow Scotland and other regions to have a more open set-up due to differing demographic circumstances and needs. I would urge the UK government to look seriously at these if it is not willing to keep free movement for EU nationals across the whole of the UK.

The fact is, we are in competition with the rest of Europe for workers and the exchange rate is not as attractive to them as it was. Stir into the mix restrictions on movement, cost of visas and a general feeling of not being particularly welcome or valued, and you are left with an unpalatable brew with a noxious whiff of otherness.

I know of of at least two agencies this year which are struggling to source enough temporary workers to fulfill agreements. We do not need a SAW scheme, we need free movement of labour, or it won’t be so much a case of whether or not we will allow them to come here, but whether they will want to come at all.

That would be a great pity, in my opinion, and not just for my own selfish business reasons. In the year I left school, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down and I remember there was a great sense of relief and joy. Some 28 harvests later, it feels like a wall is going back up again.

So, solidarity, brothers and sisters – the horticulture sector is about to be launched right into the Brexit slurry pit with everyone else, thanks to some naïve and ignorant misconceptions about migrant workers.

We really are all in it together now right up to our necks and unless we decide to find the ladder and climb out again (if you get my drift) we should probably heed Bob Dylan: 'We better start swimmin’ or we’ll sink like a stone ... for the times they are a changin'.'