Tightening of immigration laws means farmers face losing 50,000 tonnes of fruit

Millions of pounds worth of soft fruit and vegetables are likely to be left to rot in fields this summer because of a shortage of foreign pickers caused by the falling value of the pound and new restrictions on the number of seasonal labourers allowed to enter Britain, farmers' leaders have warned.

As the harvesting season for the UK's £3.5bn horticulture industry gets under way this month, growers are fighting a losing battle to recruit enough labourers from across the European Union to pick more than 50,000 tonnes of strawberries, raspberries and other soft fruits being cultivated for the domestic market.

With thousands of workers from Poland and other eastern European countries returning home to profit from their own booming economies, the reluctance to join the annual picking bonanza is being held up as evidence of Britain's dwindling attraction as a destination for migrants willing to accept low wages or undertake unskilled jobs. A mixture of rising aspirations among the once plentiful supply of foreign labour and Whitehall red tape is being blamed for a "heartbreaking" situation where thousands of tonnes of produce could go to waste.

One Herefordshire farmer faces the loss of strawberries worth £200,000 and Scottish growers are warning they could lose up to a fifth of this year's crop, worth £5.2m. Gary Bruce, manager of a fruit farm in Arbroath, said: "If we don't get people by the end of May, it's a major problem. If the fruit isn't picked by 3 June it will be wasted."

The National Farmers Union (NFU) told The Independent that the labour shortage is worse than last year, when a smaller dip in the supply of pickers left an estimated £20m of fruit and vegetables putrefying in fields across the UK. Britain's soft-fruit industry, concentrated in Scotland, East Anglia, Kent and the Midlands, has been a success story in the past five years, growing by about 7 per cent a year and is now worth £220m.

But it is likely the labour shortage will result in supermarkets importing large quantities of produce from countries such as the Netherlands to make up the shortfall in stock and prices rising above current levels of about £2.50 for a kilogram of strawberries and £2.99 for a punnet of raspberries.

One reason being put forward for the staffing problems by growers is a government decision to reduce the number of workers allowed to enter Britain on a longstanding scheme aimed at foreign students.

The Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (Saws), which had previously allowed workers from non-EU countries such as Ukraine and Belarus to do the low-skilled picking work in Britain, is this year restricted to citizens of Romania and Bulgaria, who are members of the EU.

But a decision to reduce the number of workers under Saws from 25,000 to 16,250 this summer and the reluctance of Romanians and Bulgarians to travel to the UK to earn an income around the minimum wage for hard manual labour has left farmers and recruitment agencies struggling to find enough pickers. It is estimated that the shortfall could be as much as 25 per cent of the total needed.

Richard Hirst, chairman of the NFU's horticulture board, said: "We are looking at some big shortages. The crunch will come in the next two or three weeks when the soft fruit season starts in earnest. We are aware that growers have not been getting the numbers of pickers that they wanted and the result will be people will have crops out there that they won't be able to harvest.

"The new government rules mean the shortage is worse than last year and more crops will go unpicked. Supermarkets will look to import more fruit from wherever they can get it, at a time when we are all looking at the provenance of our food.

"The Saws scheme has run efficiently for decades and the vast, vast majority of those who take part simply return home to carry on with their studies. The Home Office somehow seems to think this is an issue about mass migration but that is simply not the case. We face the risk of growers simply deciding to give up and grow other things."

A request from farmers' leaders to the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) to temporarily extend Saws to allow 5,000 nationals from non-EU countries, where demand for seasonal work still remains strong, was rejected last week.

But operators of Saws and growers say the dwindling attractiveness of Britain for people like the Poles, who have seen the pound fall by a third against the zloty and wages rise by nearly 13 per cent back home, and the less physically demanding work available in sectors such as catering or hospitality have drastically reduced the pool of available labour.

Rachel Hubbard, director of Fruitful, a Worcestershire-based company that recruits Saws workers, said: "People are saying, 'Why should we come to Britain and earn £5.52 an hour, when we can stay at home and earn £7 an hour?'. The pound has dropped 15 per cent against the euro and that makes jobs on the mainland more attractive.

"Romanians and Bulgarians simply don't want to come to the UK in sufficient numbers and other nationalities can find work in shops and bars. Growers have to ensure that a certain volume is picked by the people they employ. If they can't reach those volumes then it is just cheaper to leave the fruit in the fields."

The company, which is offering to loan employees their travel costs to try to attract workers, said it is struggling to find EU-based staff. Concordia, another Saws operator, said it has seen a 20 per cent drop in inquiries and is up to 3,500 workers short.

Unite, Britain's biggest union, has called on farmers to attract more EU workers by increasing their wages but growers insist their margins to supply supermarkets and other retailers are so narrow that they cannot afford to pay any more.

The Government said the reduction of numbers admitted under Saws was part of a wider policy of cutting down on non-EU migrants performing unskilled jobs but said it would "continue to monitor" the scheme. A BIA spokeswoman said: "We are phasing out low-skilled migration from outside the EU because we think businesses should hire those close to home first. Some people have told us our immigration reforms are too draconian, but we think they're right for Britain."

'We have a pool of labour but we can't use it because of the new rules'

Nine years ago the Drummond family decided to invest heavily in the soft-fruit growing business on the Herefordshire farm they have owned for the past five decades. Now they are wondering whether it has been worth it.

Like many of Britain's fruit and vegetable growers, they have had little problem in securing a market for the 1,350 tonnes of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries they grow on their fields near Ross-on-Wye. The problem has been finding and retaining enough temporary workers to pick the luscious summer berries during a harvest season that will reach its frenzied peak in a month's time.

Ben Drummond, 27, who runs the family business, EC Drummond & Son, with his parents, said that although he had so far succeeded in filling his quota of 450 seasonal workers, it was likely he would face labour shortages as the picking season went on.

He said: "At the moment I have just got enough, which will hopefully see us through the peak in the first two or three weeks of June. But people will leave as the season goes on and it has become a lot more difficult to retain staff. There is a very real danger that crops will not be picked."

Following last year's summer, when a combination of bad weather and a smaller drop in the amount of labour due to reform of the Saws seasonal labourer scheme led to fruit being left to rot, some growers like Mr Drummond have decided to plant fewer crops this year.

But he says the lack of government flexibility over the terms of Saws, which is due to be abolished entirely in 2010, along with the rising price of essentials from transport to the polythene sheeting used to cover the tunnels where the fruit is grown, is causing growers to consider more lucrative crops such as cereals.

He said: "It seems ridiculous that we still have a pool of very willing labour from places like Russia and the Ukraine and yet we cannot use them because of the new rules."

His frustration at the Saws scheme is shared by Christine Snell, who last year lost more than £200,000 worth of strawberries due to a labour shortage at the 250-acre farm she runs with her husband near Hereford. This year she fears the situation could be worse because EU-based migrant workers who once filled the available places are finding more lucrative work.

She said: "Their aspirations are higher and with the free right to work, EU workers are going to factories, hospitality, things like the Olympics project, service stations and nursing homes."

John Sinclair, who farms 100 tonnes of blackberries, raspberries and strawberries at West Craigie on the edge of Edinburgh, added: "Normally I get around six emails a day from people asking for work. This year, it's only been six a week."