Protected horticulture’s current concerns over labour shortages and energy costs were highlighted in the House of Commons in October, during a debate on national food strategy and food security instigated by Conservative MP for Tatton, Cheshire, Esther McVey.
One of Ms McVey’s constituents is tomato grower Philip Pearson of APS Group. She told MPs the group would expect to engage 1,500 workers from central and eastern Europe from March to Christmas, but had been unable to this year; is putting significant effort into the development of robots to cope with the lack of people coming forward to work in the sector, but needed short-term help in the meantime to be able to deliver its commitment to tomato supply; and deserved some recognition for using carbon dioxide from its CHP plant which supplied 3MW of power to its locality of Alderley Edge.
During the course of the debate she urged the government to increase the number of visas for seasonal workers to at least 50,000 as soon as possible. Other MPs pressed for the publication of the national food strategy White Paper; asked about the outcome of Defra’s recent consultation on public sector food and catering, which could offer people healthier choices; and called for ways to increase self-sufficiency of food production.
In response, Defra minister of state Mark Spencer said food had rarely been as high on the government’s agenda and that its strategy puts food security at the heart of its vision for the food sector. “It sets out our ambition to boost food production in key sectors and to create jobs, with a focus on skills and innovations, ensuring that those are spread across the whole country,” he said. “Our aim is to broadly maintain the current level of food we produce domestically and boost production in sectors where there are the biggest opportunities.”
He added: “We will prepare for the future by investing in research and innovation. Our farming reforms will help to support farmers to maintain higher levels of food production, and we will protect the environment at the same time.”
At a meeting in November of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs cross-party committee of MPs, which is running an inquiry into food security, NFU president Minette Batters said the union’s survey of members was showing tomato and cucumber production at their lowest levels.
“Everyone is saying we need to keep volume of production up, to stop further food inflation. That is the challenge,” she said. “How do we give farmers and growers the confidence to keep making big investments when many of them have been producing food below the cost of production?”
She added that one step the government could take to give growers more certainty was to increase the number of seasonal worker visas. “Access to people is really holding growth back. That could be resolved tomorrow,” she said.
Read more news and features from the protected crop industry in our monthly publication The Commercial Greenhouse Grower.