'It's just not happening': Crops go to waste as UK farmers struggle to find workers 

probably because the farmer would have to pay them the right wages.....instead of the skimmed ones payed to the overseas workers

Farmers are serial complainers. The trouble is, they became accustomed to paying poverty wages when there was a limitless supply of cheap labour. If they pay a decent wage, they will get workers.

Kulak self harm! So amusing They will STILL vote TORY to keep their STOLEN LAND!

@@archiebald4717 I doubt that, but it could start a robot revolution, HOPEFULLY the workers will take back our land at the same time!

@@archiebald4717 Fair enough, but will they then be able to sell their products competitively in the UK market? You can always ship stuff in from overseas. The purpose of all those glittery new trade deals is to import more stuff, not to sell more UK goods overseas.

@@marksimons8861 Before joining the EC, the UK imported huge quantities of butter, beef and lamb from Australia and New Zealand. Loads of food from other parts of the Commonwealth came in. It was great! Britain also exports foid across the world. I am afraid that remoaners seem to behave like the climate doomsayers, every little thing is a sign of impending doom for life on earth.

30 aussie dollers ph to do that plus 8% superannuation. thats 16 quid ph.. plus 8% its same as or near as price on the shelves in oz.. thats why noone will do it! low pay!

You forgot the second lowest in the G20, second only to Russia. At least Russia had sanctions imposed on it. We imposed sanctions on ourselves.

Importing cheap slave labour is not the answer. Pay better and improve conditions. He is a failure at business.

@@adarkimpurity At a time of soaring inflation and increasing interest rates, your solution is to add petrol to the fire of inflation thus increasing interest rates even higher?!?

@@ianl1052 Your economy in your head needs imported cheap slave labour to keep inflation down? - This is why yous should just stay out of reality! ;D

@@adarkimpurity How much would he need to pay you to work on his farm?

@@ianl1052 Well, they reportedly don't even offer minimum wage so you could start there. It isn't just about pay though; it's about conditions, transport, and investing in technology that helps with the work. They could offer perks as incentives to people too.

They want to be feudal slave owners. Instead of paying better wages. So sick...

What's a farment?

Seeing all these if you comment ruthlessly, it means you belong to the Torry party.

@@DoctorVigneshSekar No mate, they voted for it and they knew what they voted for. No one was hiding that after Brexit farming will go. Their will has been respected. Have you seen farmers protesting? I have not so they must be happy.

Hello Mr Robert Rodz Sir. I would like to say that I have no problems with mexicans etc and your situation. I only have a problem with islam, its muslims that have come into the country. I would love migrants to come in, just not muslims or islam. They tend to bring in muslims because they will support them politcally and they will get their way. Its just set up for that reason.

Ok that's a huge no right there, first of all Gypsies and Roma are the same thing, 2nd of all you think that the eastern europeans that have come to England are all Gypsies....? How can you think such a thing, you've had in England: Romanians, Bulgarians, Latvians, Polish, Lithuaninan, etc. It just goes to show that people in England are so ignorant.

Except next year there will be nothing to pick if nothing is planted. 🤷‍♂️

@@ianl1052 That's right fertilizer without planting means little 😉😂

Fvck that then. won't be treated like a slave.

always stingey tite fisted mean farmers are.. they all want serfs.. lords of the land!- i known 3 off in 3 countries.

I agree , it's realy sad to see how the UK is changing at this moment , I feel sorry for the remaeners .

30 aussie $ ph in oz- plus 8% superannuation. thats 16 quid ph.. nearly same price on shelves therein is the problem

And a ton of these farmers won't hire anyone who won't stay on their on site "accommodation", because that means they can't charge them for board and effectively pay below minimum wage.

Slave work! figure it out.

Maybe the UK will break international law, and do it to them selfs by creating a trade-war.. who knows? 😅

Rather, in this case, you are unable to reap what you sow.

Apparently not !

Gladly.

After having to let crops rot in the fields last year, they planted less for this year. Wash, rinse, repeat for 2023.

@@ianl1052 with the world entering a food crisis.. wonder how this will play out...

import cheap slave labour! (you guys are sick)

Forcing them to work in a field would be a good start. Sanction their MPpay if they refuse...you know like UC claimants. 👍

Farmers became addicted to paying poverty wages when there was a limiless supply of cheap labour. If they pay a decent wage, they will get workers.

Who did away with the agricultural wages board mmm

Diego Love: The BEST comment.

Harry I wouldn't be so sure that this is minimum wage work if that's what you're presuming. Crop pickers earn productivity bonuses to bring their pay above the minimum.

Most Mcdonald workers earn minimum wage although I would imagine the work is a lot easier than on a farm.

You are right. Farmers became addicted to paying poverty wages, while there was a limitless supply of cheap labour.

@@archiebald4717 The average farm worker salary in the United Kingdom is £22,908 per year or £11.75 per hour. Entry level positions start at £20,859 per year while most experienced workers make up to £30,000 per year. Typical hourly pay for berry picking ranges from £9 to £11 per hour and can be higher with earnings of up to £14 per hour being achievable for some staff. Source: the UK Talent employment agency. Below are some typical examples. General Farm Worker Denny, Stirlingshire, UK Aviagen Group Ltd £21,623.81 to £22,896.44 per annum Competitive benefits package Pig Farm Workers United Kingdom, United Kingdom Roadhogs The salary range £23,000 - £28,000 FREE accommodation, daily catering and travel allowance.Fortnightly pay into your bank account.We do not take any % of your wages - What you earn, you keep. Assistant Cattle Stockperson/ General Farm worker Pembroke, Pembrokeshire, UK £24,180 annum ​Welder & General Farm Worker (Horticulture) Shropshire £28,000 (Depending on Experience) + Bonus + Benefits Farm Worker/Groom (Rehoming) Honiton, England The Donkey Sanctuary £21,508 Hardly sounds like hunger wages to me. Try a zero hour contract job in the gig economy. British farmers need an estimated 500,000 workers across the food supply sector as the pandemic and Brexit have driven thousands of foreign pickers away. Some farms will pay workers up to 60% more to combat the shortage. To meet rising demand, vegetable growers around the UK are offering to pay pickers, packers, processors and drivers up to £20 an hour (£30 on a weekend). While workers will be offered more for their time, it's expected this sharp rise will feed through to supermarket shelf prices. Source: Countryliving ...and still Brits don't want these jobs.

@@ianl1052 Well if all that was fact, it would be okay. We all know that farmers, builders and some other industries often pay less than the law requires and very often in cash, especially to foreign workers. As for not enough people, more than 5 million citizens of EU member countries have registered to settle in the UK. Just how many more millions can the country accommodate? Farmers need to stop complaining and get the job done. They complained before the UK joined the Common Market, the complained about the EU, they complained about having left the EU. Did you ever see a farmer riding a bicycle? By the way, I have friends in Northern Sweden who tell me that hundreds of Thai citizens are flown in every year to pick the wild berries. Last time I looked Sweden is a member of the EU and has had a very large influx of migrants over the past few years. Oh, and the Swedish health services are unable to operate effectively in that area, due to a severe shortage of health professionals. So maybe its time to stop the parochialism and blaming everything in Brexit. It begins to sound like our ancestors blaming every misfortune on comets.

You are such an awesome person.

it's not, they enjoy benefits of Brexit.

@@jerryorange6983 can you explain to me what the benefits of Brexit are? Thanks.

@@mkoschara Dublin Agreement. Boat people can come over, even those who failed their claims in the EU. I bet it's great to build Global Britain or whatever it will be called in the future.

@@jerryorange6983 That's a bit dubious (as a benefit), Mr. Orange. Since Brexit: Have you noticed that the pound has gone and stayed down? Have you noticed that the UK has less political clout? Have you noticed a decrease in the UK's air and water quality? I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this, Mr. Orange.

@@mkoschara Oh yes dumping sewage into waters makes more profit for water companies. How not to enjoy it? You see - under the EU, our democratically elected were not allowed to do that. Even better benefit comes for workers. The working hours directive is gone. They can now work more hours for same money. How great is that. I am really annoyed with Mick Lynch who voted out and now when his boss wants to give more working hours for British people he is unhappy instead of respecting what people voted for and what was decided by democratically elected. I hope working holidays will be back soon too. Why people go to Spain and spend our money abroad when they can stay here and support local farmers enjoying our countryside like in old good days. There were great days. Whole families were working at fields having free holidays and making some cash too. The EU spoiled so many people, the whole nation is messed up. Luckily, we had 17,4 million who said not to all this. I believe Mr Mogg will reverse the damage made to this country by the EU. In old good it was simple you lost your leg in a factory, next day you worked again and you were happy that friend of Mr Mogg's grandfather wanted you back at all. Now they put people on benefits and they still complain that they don't get enough. Tories have two more years or even more if they run earlier elections so let's hope they deliver more benefits for everybody. Brexit is still in making.

Think about it. The people who normally pick didn't become rich they just can't stand the english.

@ English isn't a problem, as long as the money is worth it. If the wages are too low then I would guess it is the main reason British people don't want to work on that picking field 😀

@@lunganigazu1249 the were EU citizens that were doing the work. Now they see England as a xenophobic country that doesn't want them.

@@RazorMouth mmm I have thought so, perhaps that is why they choose to go for Brexit from the first place, to distance away themselves from the EU

P&O didn't seem to have much of a problem having bus loads of foreign workers at the port ready to replace the British workers they sacked. Tell me how that was possible again?!?

They pay quite well if you're well practiced enough to be good at it. The main problem is that the work and the available workers aren't in the same place anymore. People had to move to cities to live and work as rural properties are snapped up by the retired and for holiday homes.

30£/h

@@dondoodat They don't. They became addicted to the limitless supply of cheap compliant labour in the EU.

You must have bad eyes then , grains this year have been a bumper crop.

No need for that. I'm sure hundreds of asylum seekers and refugees would prefer to work on our farms instead of being deported to Rwanda.

@@ianl1052 good point and Rwanda is a disgrace to africa but it is tobe expected as it is ruled by a dictator with francophone africa tendencies. but yeah you are right use Ukrainians instead i thought they wanted people who were going to come back after harvest. yeah fellow whites the better

It's illegal to half the wages.

@@ianl1052 how many were sent to Rwanda so far?

@@buk3695 None, thanks to the ECHR. 🇺🇦🇪🇺🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🇪🇺🇺🇦

John Stockburn: Bulldust... your myopia is acting up again. How about the carbon footprint and global warming - flying fruit pickers halfway around the world?

@@Keithlfpieterse the sort of people who will not return IF they even helped harvest the crops , we have hotels full of those sort of scum not doing anything other than scrounging off the tax payers

Have you, or do you know someone who invented the machine to do the work of those people in those fields?! Look at their moves after they pick the salads. I am a chef, not long ago I watched a video about a new invention, a machine that's washing dishes without any human interference, so basically replacing humans in that field of work. Automation, problem solved? Not exactly, go and work in a kitchen as a dish washer for couple of days, and you will understand why that machine is useless in real life. ''There has to be a better way of harvesting crops'' but it is not!

@@Julian-ux5xd I realise that such can and would be difficult but I spent many years as a production engineer with various robotics and machines of various types. I agree the disaster that Wedgwood faced in their process and have had similar experiences but cannot believe hand is the only option. I guess part of the trouble is the cut and cut again later but if you cut sequentially you can still attain a harvest. It might however require a different regime. I am now far too old to commence on such a project but a great deal of soft fruit is machine picked I am informed, currents and berries etc. I accept there would be great outlay which is why farming contractors now exist but if we are to efficiently feed 63 million people in these islands we have to reappraise the way we do it. I respect your profession but many people just want cheap food on their plate. That does not mean bad food just something within economic reach. Washing greasy dishes yes I have done a bit of that and I agree that some of it needs a steam hose but that would probably only work on metal! Regards.

The cheapest option is to avoid automatization altogether and keep a disadvantaged underclass to do the servitude jobs. Problem is, all the rich people already have their butlers. These poor fuckers are picking fruits for the working class nobody cares about.

Many of these crops just can't be harvested mechanically - try using a robot to pick raspberries and you end up with raspberry juice.

Your rhetorical question is a bit terrifying... Do you honestly think there's some magic robot these farmers are simply choosing not to use? Because for a lot of crops, specifically the ones currently rotting in fields, there is no mechanised option, or it only supports human effort. Second it's not just some mysterious market force you can't grasps at work. Farm work is seasonable. That means harvest time requires an influx of workers who will shortly become unemployed when harvest time is over. Seasonable work is not something that's practical for everyone. In the past you would take your whole family to work fields. Feel free to look at the pictures from Kent's hop harvest. Tens of thousands of Londoners would travel to Kent every year to work as hop pickers. Hops something that has been mechanised incidentally, but before then it was how you got your harvest done. At the time taking your family to live in a barn was a nice way to have a holiday. Today there's only a small subset of people who can realistically leave their lives to do seasonal work. This isn't just an issue in the UK, I saw a fascinating documentary about how many people harvesting berries in Sweden come from Thailand. But back to the issue at hand. Farmers have to guess what the workforce conditions will be months in advance. They can plant using mechanisation and tend crops through the season without needing an outside workforce. They have to guess how many workers they'll have. Guess too few or too many and the result is the same in terms of profit. So this is what their best guess as to eventual workforce numbers might be, and that's up to the government. What they'll be doing is decreasing what they'll plant or number of animals they intend to raise, until the amount of domestic food production is at levels sustainable with migratory workforces. That will drive some farms to insolvency and drastically lowers domestic food production but the Tory party refuses to do anything to prevent that inevitability so that's what will happen. And no a magic robot solution is not going to appear.

so it's easier for someone to move from 5000 miles away from Tajikistan than it is for you to drive 15 miles

​​@@buk3695 15 miles per day for 9.50 an hr job? They would be out of pocket, not worth it. Plus what if they don't drive?

Don’t be mean to the Royal family! 👑

I suggest we start with you. Anyone with your poor grasp of the English language can't possibly find a job. Of course, another explanation for your poor understanding of English could be that you yourself are a foreigner. 🤔

This isn't even a coherent sentence.

Do you have a link to a supplier of machines which do exactly this work? In general - i'm with you, this isn't the backbreaking, unhealthy sort of job people in a Western society should do. Nobody should do it. But - not everything can be automated. Picking and handling of soft products like berries or salad is tricky. There are two alternatives; grow stuff, which can be handled by machines most of the time (less choice in the shops) or invest huge sums in research and later on in farming machines (higher costs). You are aware that UK farmers just have lost a big part of their income from EU subsidies? They simply cannot afford huge, complicated tools right now, even if they were available. UK farms are pretty big in European comparison, but they are still too small for this. But i guess we will see some concentration in this sector pretty soon. Smaller family farms will just give up...

I think the entire industry- if not world- has been waiting for YOU to say exactly this word, so they can finally start ............

@@DieNWOsiehtAlles66 😂

Look up James Scotmore

@@uweinhamburg In Ireland we have contract companies that harvest for multiple farms, the contractors rent or buy the machinery. That way the high cost of machinery isn't borne by the small/medium size farmers.