Britain needs roughly 75,000 seasonal workers to pick and pack fruit and vegetables at the height of the summer

Britain’s rural businesses have struggled to find willing workers since the Brexit referendum, a lobby group of landowners said yesterday.

The Country Land and Business Owners Association (CLA), which is traditionally a bulwark of Tory support, said that there was an acute shortage of both British and foreign workers.

In a thinly veiled critique of the Conservative promises to cut migration to the “tens of thousands”, the CLA published results of a straw poll showing that 44 per cent of its members “had experienced a reduction in the availability of migrant labour over the past year”.

Almost 90 per cent had “tried to recruit locally but the majority found it difficult to fill positions with British workers”.

Britain needs roughly 75,000 seasonal workers to help