As the main UK strawberry season gets under way, growers have highlighted the challenges they face in terms of labour recruitment and rising costs.
Andrew Sturgeon of Lindsey Lodge Farm, Suffolk, told the BBC, “We need pickers, there is a limit to the amount of time you could expect anyone to pick fruit. We have 11 pickers now but we’d like to get 15 or 16.
“The constant battle of balancing supply and demand is probably the biggest worry but you’ve got to have the supply, you’ve got to have the pickers to get into that position of concern,” he continued. “We had a system where if someone [from the EU] dropped out from our team they would introduce a friend or relative to take their place. That’s no longer possible and that’s caused the problems we’re seeing today.”
Robert Simpson of Fife Fruits told HortiDaily, “We have not increased acreage this year but are aiming to stay roughly the same as last season. Availability and access to seasonal labour to harvest the crops has been a major concern, and continues to be, that is a big driver for us and most soft fruit growers at the moment I think [are] not growing production. The labour challenge, and increasingly high costs have now also been accompanied by the massive cost increases we are seeing for all other inputs: fuel, fertiliser, packaging, transport and logistics costs, every input really.
“Everything seems to be working against us in the industry just now, from Covid 19 in 2020 to Brexit and now the war in Ukraine, high UK employment, to additional administration and higher than normal wage increases for seasonal VISA scheme workers being imposed by Government; there seems no end to the barriers being created to make doing the most critical part of our job more difficult and stressful.”
