When the strawberry picking season begins in May there will be a few new arrivals competing with the eastern European workers: robots.

The prospect of Brexit Britain and the pound’s fall have encouraged farmers to seek a high-tech solution to a very old problem. This year a handful of automated picking machines are being tested to meet a growing labour shortage that risks being exacerbated by Brexit and the government’s “red line” on controlling immigration.

Businesses from farms to pharmaceuticals are preparing for restricted access to European workers.

Tim Ensor, chief commercial officer of Tharsus, which designs and manufactures robots, said that Brexit was one of the recurrent themes at the European Robotics Forum in Edinburgh this week.

“The one area where there is a