Fruit Shortage Worries Sees UK Flying in European Pickers to Help Covid-19-Hit Farmers

FARM workers are going to be flown to Britain on charter flights to bolster the reduced number of fruit and vegetable pickers in the UK.

Britain has suffered a shortage of seasonal workers from Eastern Europe because of the coronavirus travel restrictions, and the BBC has reported that a charter flight from Romania with around 150 pickers will land at Stansted Airport tomorrow (April 16).

There has also been a pre-Covid-19 pandemic issue of EU seasonal workers deciding to shun Britain because of concerns over Brexit, and what it means to them.

The UK’s main problem though is similar to that being experienced in Spain, which has lost out on crucial European and North African workers that have been unable to get into the county for the harvest season.

Spain’s solution has been to offer long-term unemployed people deals to go into the fruit fields which would not impact on the social security benefits they are getting at the moment.

That’s in addition to foreign labourers having any work visas automatically extended.

Both British and Spanish growers have said that they are really worried that valuable crops will be left to rot if they don’t have the staff to pick them.

Air Charter Service told the BBC that tomorrow’s flight is the first of up to six that they will be operating through to the end of June.

The Romanian workers will have their temperatures taken and will be working at farms around England.

Several UK growers have also started a move to get more help from local people, amidst concerns large quantities of product will not be harvested.

The National Farmers’ Union have said that up 70,000 pickers are needed.