Hampshire farmer Graham Collett has warned that the UK fruit industry would ‘collapse’ without access to migrant seasonal workers.
He made his comments after government figures showed that UK net migration had hit a record high of 606,600 in 2022, mainly from people arriving from non-EU countries on government-issued visas to study, work or join family members.
He highlighted the fact that £60 million of fruit and vegetables were wasted in the UK in 2022, many because they could not be harvested at the right time. “The British workforce is too thin on the ground to cover the sheer number of people needed in the farming and food industry,” he told journalists.
“Brits are not best suited to manual labour because we have not had a labour economy in the UK for several generations now. We haven’t raised, educated or trained manual labour workers and so we must rely on migrant workers to help us out.”
Graham, who harvests 15 tonnes of fruit a week for sale through his farm shop, added that most British workers wanted permanent jobs, and so avoid seasonal work. This is another reason why it is so important we must be able to recruit international workers to help us all year round, but particularly during peak times.
“Without international people arriving to work on farms across the UK, the farming and food system would collapse. It is critical that people realise this and separate legitimate forms of work from other immigration issues that are happening throughout the country.”
Westlands Farm Shop team consists of 18 local people and 25 international workers from countries such as Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.