Re: Fears come to fruition
Originally Posted by
Dodge
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Actually, seasonal work used to be done by students and the unemployed, i know because i have done it when as a student AND during the time i was unemployed. Back when i was doing it, the work was back breaking BUT it paid well. Now if this guy Hardman at Hops Labour believes in what he says then in my opinion it is him and his farmer colleagues who have created the problems they face, not the government. Farmers want cheap labour, end of and i do not care what any of them say to the contrary. They want you to work long hours, 7 days a week for low pay and that is a FACT. My Uncle Pete who married my Aunt was a farmer, he lived and worked in Sandwich in Kent so i do know a thing or to about what they do.
Farmers are also very demanding on their time, crops must be picked when they say and where they say. This is not always suitable or convenient for students or the unemployed due to having already existing commitments. Therefore the only other option is EU labour. It is cheap and can move around freely and at anytime.
Farmers would make good politicians because they are very good at deflecting problems of their doing onto others.
Students still pick crops. It’s just that they do it in France or Australia in the summer holidays or gap years
Perhaps we need to align the main student holidays with the planting and harvest seasons so that the nation can ulilise the resource
Where I live I’m surrounded by farms and small market gardens. Most of the crops are harvested by mechanical means but that is not possible for all crops
The itinerant crop picking labour will generally go where they can earn the most but Brexit has added another factor. A recent news article on tv showed recruiters in Romania only attracting a handful of people to their recruitment day whereas in previous years there had been hundreds
The message from individuals they interviewed was that the UK was not considered to be safe for them as the message they had gleaned from Brexit was that they were not wanted and there was a lot of animosity towards them. So they are not coming in the numbers we need
Yes mechanisation may solve some of the issues in the future but it cannot solve them all and still keep our farmers competitive in the UK and world markets particularly with low or non existent tariffs on the agri sector affording little or no protection from cheap imports