Many of them left for their country or to work in other countries
British strawberry farms face collapse due to departure of European workers
Workers prefer to work in Britain because of the attractive salary.
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Strawberry picking is hard work.
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Some farmers sometimes leave part of the crops to rot in the fields.
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Some farmers sometimes leave part of the crops to rot in the fields.
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With colleagues Eleanor Bubba leaving their UK farm and no British workers to replace them, the task of picking strawberries in the country has gone from tough to grueling.
Farm owners wonder about the future of agriculture in their country.
Bubba used to sleep in a trailer with a lot of workers on the site of the Charenton Strawberries, a 16-hectare strawberry farm in Milton Constable, Norfolk.
Right now, there are only four people in the cart.
Everyone has left to work in the European Union.
"My friends went back to their country, or to work in Spain and Germany," she says.
Many of them did not return to work in Britain this year.
Buba, a mother from Bulgaria, has been picking fruits for two years.
"It's hard work, and we have to get up early and be ready," she says, explaining, "We wake up at six in the morning, during the summer, and now we wake up at 7.30 in the morning, and we work in the field, sometimes it's cold and sometimes it's tolerable, and sometimes it's stormy. It can be boring.”
Strawberry picking is a highly skilled job. “It took me a month to learn how to pick this fruit,” Buba says.
Because the Charenton Strawberries grow their fruit in the ground, making it a better produce, pickers must bend over to pick them, or squat, for most of their work shifts.
While many farms grow strawberries on higher rooftops, which means they are easier to pick, but of lower quality.
The strawberries are picked by hand, as no one has yet developed a strawberry picking machine.
The importance of quality
Boba cuts the "cup of the plant", at the top of the fruit, taking care to keep it intact, otherwise the fruit will quickly rot.
"Quality is important here, and you have to move forward quickly," says the Bulgarian worker.
Her supervisor directs her to the place she should choose, and checks every fruit for quality control.
Normally, the Bulgarian woman works eight hours a day, but now, given the lack of labor on the farm, and the departure of European workers because of “Brexit”, she often approaches 10 hours, and “finally feels tired”, as she says: “My back hurts, And when it rains, the weather is tough.
And when it's hot, it's hard, too.”
Bubba has two children, and misses them so much;
But unlike many of her European companions who left Britain, she is staying, because "the return here is good," she says.
And life for farmers is often boring.
In the evening, the farm workers play cards or watch TV in their carts.
Sometimes they go to the beach.
"It's horrific," says the business owner, Simon Turner, 64. "We have killed Brexit, and it will destroy us."
I'm still working despite (the pandemic), but I don't think we'll get past the effects of Brexit."
Turner works 20 hours a day trying to manage work and production.
"I've run this farm for 40 years, and this is the worst thing that has ever happened," he says.
The tension in his voice shows, "When you put your life into building something out of nothing, destroying it by doing something out of your control is a bad thing."
rewarding wages
The problem is that Turner cannot employ British workers, nor can EU citizens enter the country.
While the wages are still good, Buba says she earns between £2,000 and £2,500 a month, after tax, depending on how much fruit she picks.
But it is stressful and back-damaging work that UK workers don't want to do.
"It's very difficult," Turner says.
Last year, it employed 88 British workers as part of the "Pick for Britain" campaign, which is supported by the government.
"Most of them did not last for three hours," he says, adding, "Imagine the effort to arrange the files of 88 people." There are only two people left for a few days.
Turner tried to push the business forward as much as he could, but things teetered on the brink of collapse.
In it he says: “We probably lost 20% of our crop, because we had no workers to pick it;
If we lose a lot, we will not be able to continue.”
He seems desperate that the government will allow EU workers to enter the UK again.
"These are good people and we pay them fairly," the strawberry farm owner says. "But Brexit has made it so difficult that they don't want to come."
Competitive wages
“Agri companies have done everything they can to hire local staff, but even the ever-increasing competitive wages have had little effect, because employment is very limited, and instead we are faced with rising production costs,” says Tom Bradshaw, deputy head of the National Farmers Association in Britain.
The government boosted the seasonal workers programme, which allowed fruit pickers to enter the UK, with an additional 30,000 job opportunities in 2020;
But many in the sector say that is not enough.
growing struggle
Fruit pickers are brought into the UK from Barbados, Nepal, Tajikistan, Kenya, the Philippines and elsewhere, because farms cannot find British or European workers.
More than 16,000 workers from 37 countries were recruited by farms and orchards this year on seasonal worker visas, according to an analysis of Interior Ministry data.
In 2020, only 7,000 workers came to Britain from 14 countries.
This is a sign of their ever-increasing struggle to hire enough workers, the farmers said, with some crops left to rot in the fields this year and farmers forced to consider production cuts.
In 2019, the government launched a pilot scheme for seasonal worker visas that allows fruit and vegetable growers to hire workers from anywhere in the world.
This scheme was expanded in an effort to meet the demand for this labour.
Prior to Britain's exit from the European Union, most of these seasonal visas were given to Eastern European workers.
However, farmers said it has become difficult to hire Bulgarians and Romanians, because many of those in a pre-established situation have taken jobs that are less skilled or better paid, while others have returned home after Brexit and the outbreak of the pandemic.
This year, the majority came from Ukraine, followed by Russia, Belarus and Moldova.
Nepal was in fifth place with Bulgaria.
More than 100 collectors were recruited from Barbados to pick blueberries, strawberries, herbs and potatoes.
Farms also recruit workers from Central Asian countries, such as Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, while a small number come from further afield, such as Kenya, Nigeria and the Philippines.
The farmers said they usually cover most of the travel costs.
Temporary visas
Britain's National Farmers' Federation is calling for a short-term visa for workers, along with the scheme for permanent seasonal workers.
"This would be effective and vital, frankly, to meet the urgent needs of today's industry," says union president Tom Bradshaw.
Unless the government allows temporary visas for EU farm workers, employer Simon Turner is considering halting production on his farm next year.
"Maybe next year will be our last, and we will lose a lot of money," he says.
This year is likely to be the last year for a Bulgarian worker, Eleanor Popa, in the UK, in which she says: “I will miss the UK.
It's a beautiful country, the people are nice.” But all her friends are in Spain or Germany, picking fruit, so you'll probably head there and join them next year.
"It is easier to travel there, obtain residence documents, work is easier, and the return is similar, too, and Germany is closer to Bulgaria," she says.
• Bubba works eight hours a day, but now, given the lack of labor on the farm, and the departure of European workers because of Brexit, it often approaches 10 hours.
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