fruit pickers – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Seasonal Worker visa route encounters problems

Posted on February 27, 2023March 3, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Radio 4 interview with Dr Lydia Medland

Following the Home Office revocation of the license of one of the seasonal agricultural worker recruitment operators, Dr Lydia Medland spoke to BBC farming today on 20th February 2023 about the scheme (listen here).

The UK Seasonal Worker visa route allows workers to come from around the world to work for up to six months. There are (or were) seven ‘operators’ of the scheme. These are licenced by the government as the recruiters and sponsors of the workers and are responsible for both enforcement of the scheme requirements, particularly ensuring that workers go home at the end of their stay, and for worker protection.

The UK has had some form of seasonal worker migration scheme since the end of World War II, but the current scheme dates from 2019, when following Brexit, EU workers no longer had access to the UK labour market, and UK fruit and vegetable growers and food producers had to look elsewhere to fill seasonal labour vacancies.

At the end of 2021, Dr Medland and Dr Scott (University of Gloucestershire) wrote a briefing outlining problems in the design of the scheme recommending major changes including a guaranteed minimum income, and for workers to have full access to public services.

In her interview with Radio 4 on 20th February Dr Medland spoke of her concerns that the same companies are responsible for ensuring workers’ return as are responsible for preventing their exploitation, saying that with ‘…outsourcing to for-profit businesses of this dual very important role, it isn’t surprising that something has gone wrong, I think the UK should go back to the drawing board on this scheme.’ Academic research has found (see for example Costello and Freedland, 2014) that where there is an interaction between protection of workers and enforcement of migration law, the enforcement role takes precedence. This leaves workers vulnerable to exploitation because they fear the same organisations and laws that are also meant to protect them.

Radio 4 put these comments to the Home Office who said, ‘The seasonal workers route has been running for three years and each year there have been improvements.’ However, the increasing scrutiny of the scheme by researchers, NGOs and journalists may be having some impact because on 23rd February 2023 Mark Spencer, the Farming Minister announced that Seasonal Workers coming to the UK on the scheme would be guaranteed 32 hours a week of work. This is in response to reports that workers are returning in debt because of there is less work than originally expected.

Whilst the Seasonal Workers visa route is no longer officially a ‘pilot’ it has only been renewed until the end of 2024 and it remains open to significant review. This policy is part of the focus of the ‘Working for 5 a day’ project because seasonal migrant workers are a vital part of the labour force that ensures consumers have access to fruit and vegetables. We will continue to follow this policy development and its changing context.

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This blog was written by and has been reposted with kind permission from Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Lydia Medland. View the original blog.

A ‘fresh’ start: Exploring the social dimensions of the food systems that supply Bristol

Posted on October 22, 2020April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

A chard seedling attempting to grow on Lydia’s patio garden

For many years now, I have been researching work in food production ‘out there’: beyond the reach of a day trip and in languages that are not my own. I found the Moroccan tomato so interesting that I wrote a thesis on it. Now though, I want to know what’s occurring closer to home. What of the food produced in the UK? Who is working in the fields? Who is taking the risk that the supermarkets will buy their produce or not? Who is footing the bill, personally, socially, emotionally, for keeping the food coming into cities despite Covid 19, and despite Brexit? After farm work was recognised as ‘essential’ during the pandemic, have workers gained status, or simply more health and safety challenges?

It is to these questions that I am now turning. I want to know who is working to feed Bristol and how they are getting on. More specifically, I want to know about fruit and veg; that food group that we all eat. Vegan, vegetarian, meat eater or flexitarian; we all eat some fruit and veg. Even if it is highly processed into a form with higher ‘added value’: perhaps a smoothie or the filling in a pre-prepared lasagne. What’s more, the UK government want us to eat a specific quantity: five portions a day. Scientists also estimate that if everyone in the UK ate these recommended portions, then our average carbon emissions would go down because fruit and veg have, in many (but not all) ways, a lower impact on ecosystems than other food groups.

How workers and farmers are getting on isn’t just important in its own right, but it also affects food security overall. This is particularly so in regards to exactly those foods which we need more of in this stressful, challenging climate, when it is all too easy to reach for the beer, or the chocolate or the ice cream. Not that I want to get into the business of identifying good and bad foods, they all feed us. Nevertheless, dealing with the coronavirus epidemic and the news that obesity is a major risk factor in suffering badly from the virus, brings fruit and veg into the policy arena again. In the new plan to tackle growing rates of obesity, adverts for fast food will be curtailed before 9pm and there will be a ban on ‘buy one get one free’ offers on sugary and fatty foods, with new encouragement for shops to promote fruit and vegetables. Yet while the focus is on consumers and their needs, the availability of fresh ingredients for this pro-health recipe goes unquestioned. OK, apples do grow on trees, but they must still be picked.

Some people will have seen other news stories. Of crops rotting in the fields last autumn, of seasonal workers flown to the UK from Romania and Bulgaria in the middle of a pandemic, working when everyone else is asked to stay at home. Putting their own lives at risk when white collar workers are ushered inside. More stories, of a lack of seasonal workers and of British workers signing up when for a long time such work has fallen disproportionately to migrant and European workers [1]. These stories alter as we draw back from the pandemic and its outbreaks, through Brexit, and prior to Brexit. Yet the question of who feeds us and how, at what costs and taking on what risks, remains for many of us, out of sight and out of mind.

So this is my new project, and I start this week. In my kitchen, because we’re in a pandemic and that’s where I have a garden table standing in as a desk. I do want to reach out though. So, if you are, or know a farmer or worker in this sector, please get in touch, I would love to listen to your experiences and your challenges. Or even come and see them. I’ve taken flights and chased questions about food to places that look like they will produce answers, simply through their seductive difference to my own normality. Now I am interested in the everyday difficulties in the details faced by farmers and workers in the UK. I’m not looking for heroes and villains, but simply for people who work in the food system.

To be specific, my project focuses on the conventional (not organic) side of the sector. This is simply because it feeds the majority of our country and the city I live in. That could be those who produce vegetables that end up in packaging branded with union jacks, but which otherwise, are just normal. Just simple apples, or tomatoes, or cucumbers, with lots of plastic and stickers, or none at all. I want to consider conventional scale production as close to home as possible and marvel at its successes, struggles and contradictions. Considering ONS data and recent analysis we can observe that only 1-2% of workers in the UK works in agriculture, yet nearly 50% of food consumed in the UK is produced here [2]. How is this done? At what cost? Who is helping and making sacrifices so that the apples keep coming and the carrots arrive fresh and looking perfect.

1. See, Scott, S. (2013), Labour, Migration and the Spatial Fix: Evidence from the UK Food Industry. Antipode, 45: 1090-1109. doi:10.1111/anti.12023

2. The estimate depends on the interpretation of data and could be considered as much as 60%, see, Lang, T. (2020). Feeding Britain: Our Food Problems and what to Do about Them. Pelican. p., 26

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This blog was written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Lydia Medland, it was originally published on her blog Eating Research and has been re-published here with her permission. Lydia has a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the British Academy to research food systems in the UK.

Dr Lydia Medland

Coronavirus: flying in fruit pickers from countries in lockdown is dangerous for everyone

Posted on May 12, 2020March 31, 2023 by janet.crompton

Affordable and plentiful fruit and veg will come at the price of violating the strict national lockdowns in Bulgaria and Romania. epic_images/Shutterstock

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, major agricultural companies and charities have chartered flights to urgently bring in tens of thousands of Bulgarian and Romanian agricultural workers. Flights have headed to places like Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf in Germany, along with Essex and the Midlands in the UK.

This comes after farmers in both countries warned there is a real risk that thousands of tons of produce might be left to rot – further affecting food supply chains – if vacancies for agricultural workers go unfilled.

The excessive demand for food during lockdown has meant that farm labourers are classed as key workers, which is why they are being flown to the UK and other Western European countries.

In the UK, up to 90,000 temporary positions need to be filled within weeks. A national campaign has been launched appealing to students and those who have lost their jobs in bars, cafes and shops to help with the harvest. But so far the scheme only has around 10,000 applicants with even fewer having accepted work contracts due to low pay and demanding terms. This is nowhere near enough to ensure the sustainability of food supply chains.

That means that affordable and plentiful fruit and veg in UK supermarkets will come at the price of violating the strict national lockdowns in Bulgaria and Romania.

From ‘go back’ to ‘come back’

As of last year, nearly 98% of fruit pickers in the UK were foreign nationals. The vast majority come from Bulgaria and Romania. Both countries went into full lockdowns earlier in March, banning international travel. Chartering flights when borders are closed and planes grounded is effectively undermining the efforts of the Bulgarian and Romanian governments to manage the current health crisis.

The European Commission has banned non-essential travel while speeding up the mobility of key workers – a recognition of Western European dependency on Eastern European labour. The Bulgarian and Romanian governments have also been lax and have not insisted that Western European employers provide comprehensive health insurance for agricultural workers.

Farmers have said that without the workforce, crops may be left in the ground to rot and be wasted. Ververidis Vasilis/Shutterstock

There were promises of social distancing on planes and hand sanitiser was to be handed out. But photos of overcrowded airport lounges have demonstrated a complete disregard of health and safety. Workers will also not be paid for the mandatory 14 day quarantine period upon arrival.

Key workers to key spreaders

The reason why the lockdowns in Bulgaria and Romania are particularly strict is because both countries have fast-growing ageing populations.

The share of the population above the age of 65 between 2008 and 2018 is 2.8% for Romania and 3.2% for Bulgaria – both higher than the EU average of 2.6%. Many families also live in multi-generational households, which could put older family members at risk when the younger members return back home.

The exodus of doctors, nurses and care workers from Bulgaria and Romania also means access to medical care in smaller towns and rural areas – where most of these workers come from – will be all but impossible.

If returning migrant workers retrigger the pandemic, the consequences for both countries will be disastrous.

Economic dependency

But herein lies another part of the problem, because the national economies of both countries are heavily dependent on remittances – money sent back home from migrant workers.

For most of these people, seasonal work abroad is the only source of income and there is no safety net. They either stay home unemployed, or risk their (and their families’) health by boarding flights to the UK or Germany.

The financial incentive may be great. But so too are the public health risks. A 57-year old Romanian seasonal worker has already died from COVID-19 in Baden-Württemberg, Germany – begging the question of how many more will follow.

Food for thought

For the most part, the British public has long been disassociated from the realities of low-paid manual labour and has grown accustomed to fresh and inexpensive products produced by a disposable army of migrant workers.

And despite Brexit anxieties about EU migrants stealing British jobs, the COVID-19 pandemic has reminded the public that such labour is essential and won’t be automated anytime soon.

Ultimately though, it shouldn’t be down to migrant workers to fix supply chains during a pandemic – especially when evidence indicates that international mobility is contributing to the spread of the virus. Chartering flights during travel bans and national lockdowns is a dangerous reminder of how exploitative labour overrides political and public health responsibility.

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This blog is written by Dr Denny Pencheva, Senior Teaching Associate, Migration Studies and Politics, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Dr Denny Pencheva