Beelitz (Germany) (AFP)
Whether served with melted butter and ham, drowned in hollandaise sauce or topped with a fried egg, asparagus arriving on German and European plates usually heralds spring.
But this year, the vegetable is likely to become scarcer on the tables due to a shortage of foreign seasonal workers to ensure the harvest linked to traffic restrictions caused by the epidemic of coronavirus.
On Wednesday, Germany banned the entry into its territory of these workers, despite opposition from the country's agricultural organizations.
"These limitations are essential to slow the spread of the infection," said the spokesman for the interior ministry.
This ban even applies to nationals of member states of the European Union, notably Romania and Poland, who supply the largest contingent of seasonal workers on German farms.
- Deserted fields -
"At the moment, we only have ten seasonal workers. However, we would need sixty full-time workers to collect everything," said Thomas Syring, farmer from Beelitz, a town near Berlin known for its asparagus.
"The situation is very tense for us farmers," says the man whose fields have been practically empty for several days.
Only a few seasonal workers roam its 900 hectare farm here and there, working to prepare the asparagus harvest, covering them with white tarpaulins, before they come out of the ground, scheduled for the next few days.
The majority of Romanian workers who usually go to his farm are unable to reach Germany, blocked by the closure of the borders.
This situation is far from isolated: only half of the 5,000 foreign workers normally hired in the region at this time of the year are there, according to local producer organizations.
Germany welcomes each year nearly 300,000 foreign seasonal workers for its agricultural sector, totally dependent on this workforce, according to Udo Hemerling, secretary general of the DBV, the country's main agricultural organization.
Farmers must harvest several essential vegetable and fruit crops in the coming weeks, including strawberries and asparagus.
- Switzerland and Austria -
The problem is found in many European countries with the arrival of spring and concerns all kinds of crops.
In Switzerland, where seasonal workers now need a residence permit to be recruited, agricultural organizations have recently expressed concern. Some 33,000 foreigners work in the country's fields every year.
In Austria, a recruitment platform for temporary workers who have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus has been launched by the government to recruit seasonal workers for emergencies.
Faced with the situation, the German Minister of Agriculture Julia Klöckner put forward the idea of facilitating the employment of restaurant staff, the unemployed but also migrants to lend a helping hand to farmers.
On Monday, the government announced a reduction in certain administrative and social obligations for the hiring of seasonal workers on the German labor market, and set up an online platform connecting job seekers and farmers.
The sector needs "30,000 people" immediately and "85,000 in May," she said.
But farmers fear that learning the trade would take too long.
"If for a Romanian or a Polish trained for years I have to hire five Germans, it is not worth it," deplores Thomas Syring.
In France, the Minister of Agriculture Didier Guillaume launched on Tuesday an appeal "to the army of men and women" who "have no more activity" because of the coronavirus crisis, "to join the great army of French agriculture ", also in search of labor.
burx-fcz / yap / sba
© 2020 AFP