The Great Brexit Betrayal

industries like agriculture my family used to be involved in of course you need to have seasonal labor in fact labor all year round you might need it from overseas everybody understands that but where there's a specific demand where they have a job to come to uh people can come in and that was what by the way what we were promised in that renegotiation put a figure on it how many would come into somewhere like lincoln whatever is whatever is actually needed to do the job how many would come into somewhere like lincoln whatever is whatever is actually needed to do the job now vegetables grown in lincolnshire's fields are set to rot in the ground because there are not enough workers to pick them one cabbage grower has told look north that he could lose up to 30 percent of his crop this year he's even doubled the wages for picking the veg to 20 pounds an hour to attract people as our correspondent paul murphy reports veg lying in the fields means that supermarket shelves will stand empty this farm produces more cabbage than any other in britain it's a business turning over more than 26 million pounds a year pink star cabbage which will be destined for a lot of variation in coleslaws but this harvest is facing one big problem finding enough people to lift the stuff out of the ground everything is harvested by hand prepped by hand but also planted by hand so this is where now innovation is going to come but until that point and of course innovation costs money so but with like any crisis there's always something comes out of it the veg industry has long pinned its hopes on technical innovation and robotics to reduce its need for workers but that's yet to happen on any scale this regional labor shortage could have a much wider impact thirty percent of england's fresh veg is produced in lincolnshire in a normal year one thousand lorries per day leave the spalding area alone carrying food fifty percent of the lorry drivers in this industry are from migrant communities now the autumn harvest has traditionally been a time when thousands of migrants largely from eastern europe have come to work in the cauliflower broccoli and cabbage fields of southern lincolnshire on some farms they've comprised up to 90 percent of the workforce but new visa rules as a result of brexit have severed that pattern of migration and we're left with the prospect of good food rotting in the fields brexit certainly having an impact the people that could move freely within europe before now can't in the past we had something called a seasonal agricultural agricultural workers scheme which saw workers from outside of europe come into the uk um and you know what we're looking for going forwards is as is an expanded seasonal agricultural workers scheme we're in a refrigerated store simon has recently doubled wages here to try to attract uk based workers so how's that going it's a prime vegetable area but as getting people here that's another another thing isn't it if they've got to travel two hours or more a hard day's work go home you yeah it's not great what some farmers are now referring to as a crisis will inevitably impact all of us there's a warning of vegetable price increases in the months ahead as labor shortages really begin to bite paul murphy bbc look north spalding

Channel: Lincolnshire European Movement

Views: 31,984

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Id: L8rJvkrBniQ

Length: 3min 58sec (238 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 18 2021