New scheme to help UK fruit and vegetable growers will be capped at 2,500 visas a year

A new government visa scheme for agricultural workers has been criticised by farmers and fruit growers for not going far enough to plug the gap blown open by Brexit.

The new scheme will be capped at just 2,500 a year as part of a two-year trial announced by the environment secretary, Michael Gove, and the home secretary, Sajid Javid, on Thursday.

While welcomed as a step in the right direction, farmers’ associations say it barely addresses the needs of British summer fruit and vegetable growers, who employ 60,000 workers a year, mostly from eastern Europe. Many are now required all year round because of the boom in the sector.



“To have any effect in terms of supporting our successful industry, (a desire much-stated in the release) around 10,000 are needed now – not 2,500 – this number will have little effect on the current shortages UK farms are facing as we speak. The proposal represents a 4% increase in a shrinking workforce, said Nick Marston, the chairman of British Summer Fruits.

His view was echoed by Ali Capper, the chair of the National Farmers Union’s horticultural and potatoes board and chair of the English Apples and Pears umbrella growers group. She described it as a “fantastic” start but said it was not nearly ambitious enough.

“We need more than 11,500 seasonal workers by 2021 to keep pace with a crop that is set to grow. Right now, the pilot permits us to recruit 2,500,” she said. “This is simply not enough and our growers are already struggling to recruit workers."

Farmers, and particularly summer fruit growers, have been protesting that they are already facing shortages this year, with the prospect of food rotting in the fields after Brexit.

Under the pilot scheme, non-EU migrant workers will be able to work on farms for six months and then leave the country.

Gove said he had listened to the “powerful arguments” of farmers that the pilot would “ease the workforce pressures” and promised to review its results to look at how best to continue supporting fruit and vegetable farms.

“From lettuce in East Anglia to strawberries in Scotland, we want to make sure that farmers can continue to grow, sell and export more great British food,” he said.

The initiative is a direct replacement for a previous seasonal agricultural workers scheme (Saws) that was scrapped in 2013 after additional eastern European countries joined the EU, providing farmers with ample labour.

Marston said 21,250 workers were allowed into the country under the old Saws scheme but that the British summer fruits market boomed so much there were still shortages of 21,000 staff a year, even after the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU, which gave farms unfettered access to labour across the EU.

“The British berry industry is a great success story. We are nearly 100% self-sufficient for a long period of the year, and we need this level of support if we are to continue to thrive and grow,” said Marston.

“Whilst we appreciate the need for government to manage the scheme, we would ask for further clarification on how they see this moving to a sustainable longer-term solution that can provide for the shortage in labour we are already dealing with,” he said.

Marston said rivals to Britain such as Germany had already addressed big shortages, issuing visas for 60,000 Ukrainians in 2018, for example.

The National Farmers Union told the environment secretary this year that a new visa scheme was “mission critical”.

Farmers tell Gove: lack of migrant workers now 'mission critical' Read more

Javid said the pilot scheme would “ensure farmers have access to the seasonal labour they need to remain productive and profitable during busy times of the year”.

He said he was committed to “having an immigration system that reduces migration to sustainable levels, supports all industry and ensures we welcome those who benefit Britain”.

Soft fruit growing is one of the few areas in which Britain is entirely self-sufficient, producing all raspberries and strawberries consumed in the country and contributing £2bn to the economy in 2016.

The pilot, which will commence in spring 2019, will run until the end of December 2020 and will be monitored closely by the Home Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.