The GLA has warned it will be working hard to stem any exploitation of British daffodils pickers this season.
The industry typically requires between 2,000 and 3,000 temporary workers – the majority of which are provided by GLA-licensed companies.
But the shoots emerged weeks ahead of schedule and are already being gathered in Cornwall, Pembrokeshire and even into North Wales, ideal for the Christmas table.
GLA Chief Executive Paul Broadbent says, “The perfect spring-like growing weather we’ve experienced in the UK in recent weeks has fooled the daffodils into making an early appearance.
“As such, the we has responded with the early implementation of our programme of checks and proactive awareness-raising visits.
“Each year we carry out inspections to make sure all labour being provided is correctly licensed in order to prevent any mistreatment or exploitation of the migrant workers who come to this country for the flower harvest.
“Like the daffodil season this year we have started early in educating not only the agencies who source and provide the pickers about how to operate lawfully and in line with GLA standards but also the farmers and growers who employ the pickers.”
A concentrated week of action involving the GLA, law enforcement organisations and other partners will take during the current picking season.
The pickers will eventually move on from Cornwall and Wales into Lincolnshire and then up to Scotland where the last of the season’s blooms are collected.
Around half the UK’s daffodil crop is exported each year but with no frost forecast in the foreseeable future and even higher temperatures expected this week, the shops are likely to be full of British daffodils throughout the festive period.