Daily Junction.mobi portalFourth, improve worker protections. The Seasonal Worker visa ties workers to a single employer, making them vulnerable to exploitation. Allow workers to change employers if they are mistreated. Enforce minimum wage and accommodation standards.
Fifth, invest in automation and productivity. Provide grants for robotic harvesters, AI-driven farm management, and training for farmers to adopt new technologies. This will reduce labor demand in the long term, but it must be done in a way that supports small farms, not just large agribusinesses.
Sixth, support domestic recruitment. If the government wants British workers on farms, it must make the work more attractive: higher wages, better accommodation, career pathways, and year-round employment (e.g., combining seasonal farm work with other rural jobs).
UK farms face a severe labour shortage, with 40,000 seasonal positions unfilled in 2024. Brexit ended free movement, cutting off the supply of EU workers who made up 98% of seasonal farm labour. The Seasonal Worker visa is bureaucratic, expensive (£1,500-£2,000 per worker), and provides only 45,000 visas against a need for 80,000. Domestic recruitment has failed, with only 3% of seasonal workers being UK nationals.
The result is declining food production (down 8% since 2020), crops rotting in fields, rising food prices, and increased reliance on imports (now 85% of fruit, 45% of vegetables). Automation is not a short-term solution, and the current policy is unsustainable.
Without urgent action, the UK will lose its horticulture sector, becoming entirely dependent on imports from countries with lower standards. The solution is to increase the visa cap to 80,000, allow EU workers to apply, reduce costs and bureaucracy, and invest in automation and worker protections. The question is whether the government will act before it is too late.