LABOUR shortages in the horticulture sector are being predicted for this summer, with warnings that the recently launched ‘seasonal agricultural workers’ pilot scheme is woefully inadequate.

To meet seasonal demand for fruit and vegetable pickers and processors, the UK usually needs to bring in between 60,000 and 70,000 experienced workers from overseas – but the current pilot SAW scheme, which is capped at just 2500, barely scrapes the surface of that. NFU Scotland this week called for the scheme to lift that limit to at least 10,000.

Last summer, a faltering migrant labour supply from Europe, combined with the hot weather, produced an alarming amount of waste on fruit and vegetable farms. This summer, with the real threat of disruption to the food chains between the EU and the UK, making the most of domestic crops has to be made a priority.

Recruitment agency Concordia is one of two operators of the pilot scheme, placing 1250 workers per year on UK farms in both 2019 and 2020. Its head of operations, Sam Zubaidi, commented: “Demand for the scheme has been very high – both from interested seasonal workers (from whom Concordia receives 20-30 calls per day) and from the farms who wish to employ them.

“We remain aware of data which demonstrates that recruitment of seasonal workers has become challenging between May to September for the past two years. Concordia has not yet seen evidence to suggest that the situation will improve for 2019,” he commented.

“Growers are becoming increasingly nervous about being able to recruit a sufficient number of workers to pick their crops, hence, we support the call to expand the scheme to 10,000 workers immediately.”

Scottish Liberal Democrats leader Willie Rennie added his support to calls for an expansion of the scheme to 10,000 workers: “Farmers in Fife and across the country are right to be extremely concerned about how they are going to manage to harvest their crops without the necessary numbers for their workforce. Their businesses depend upon this, which is why the NFU have called for an expansion,” he insisted.

“The pilot scheme of just 2500 people was never going to be able to do the job. The UK Government need to follow the advice from the NFU, Concordia (and others) and quadruple the number of available positions to 10,000,” he continued.

“It should have been a larger scheme in the first place but there’s still time to act now, if the Government listens and expands the scheme properly, we’ve got a much better chance of keeping our farming industry fully functioning.”

NFU Scotland’s horticulture chairman, James Porter stressed: “It was estimated there was a shortage of 10,000 seasonal agricultural workers last year in the whole of the UK, while there was still freedom of movement with the EU. With Brexit supposed to be only days away this figure is likely to be much higher for the coming year.

“Even without a no deal Brexit, 2500 seasonal workers for the whole of the UK will almost certainly fall significantly short of filling the pre-existing gap, possibly leaving a number of farmers with a serious lack of labour come the summer,” he suggested.