In the run-up to June’s European referendum, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) campaigned for Remain. The Electoral Commission’s referendum spending review, published this week, shows that the NFU spent £73,565.06 on campaigning – enough to register as an official campaign group.
While we don’t know exactly how farmers voted, an April survey by Farmers Weekly found 58% of British farmers favoured Brexit. In addition, the Country Land and Business Association found that rural areas voted Leave more heavily than the national average.
But Brexit could exacerbate already serious labour shortages on farms. Horticulture alone requires around 80,000 seasonal workers to hand-pick fruit and vegetables across the UK. According to the NFU, this is expected to rise to 95,000 by 2021. “If there aren’t enough people to pick the crops when harvest is underway, valuable food crops could be left to rot in the fields”, an NFU press officer told InFacts in October. Concern about labour shortages extends also across food and drink, a £108bn industry which employs 3.9 million people.
The Financial Times reported yesterday that almost half the British companies providing agricultural labour were unable to fulfil the horticultural sector’s demand for workers in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote – between July and September. According to an NFU survey due to be published next week, the supply of pickers for late season crops was only enough to meet 67% of the industry’s needs.
The survey also found that a quarter of seasonal farm workers quit their jobs in the third quarter of 2016 (after the referendum) – a six-fold increase compared with the first quarter (before the referendum). Of the 80,000 seasonal workforce in horticulture alone, 98% are migrants from elsewhere in the EU.
Several factors are likely to be putting European migrants off working in the UK. First, the Brexit vote saw a rise in xenophobic attacks. The number of hate crimes recorded in July was 41% higher than the previous year, while a London Polish community centre was vandalised and a Polish man was murdered in August in Harlow, Essex. Second, a weak pound has reduced the euro value of wages sent home by EU workers. And third, is possible that the prospect of a weaker UK economy has begun to deter EU migrants.
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Angela Leadsom said at the Conservative Party conference in October that young Britons should “engage with countryside matters” and take up seasonal fruit-picking jobs. Such statements might appease Brexiters, but restrictions on migration could be dangerous for British farming. Farmers have already indicated they will press for visas for seasonal workers if the UK ceases to benefit from free movement in the EU, for instance because of leaving the single market.
Finding European labour may be the most pressing concern for British farming, but it is not the only one. In 2015 UK farmers received almost €3.1bn in direct EU funding – according to the NFU – which they have asked the Treasury to ringfence. The yield from the Brexit harvest do not look to good for British farmers so far.
