Read on Twitter
Are Brits "too lazy" to do the jobs migrant workers do, like fruit picking? Are farmers "too unpatriotic" to hire them? No and no. Let's start by looking at how the job has changed since Brits used to do it. 1/n https://www.ft.com/content/eb5e3bd7-c8bf-4934-b60e-0e49152183a5
Piece rates are still common, but min wage law means farmers must top up the pay of pickers whose productivity is too low. Supermarkets have exerted relentless pressure on price & quality standards. The result is has been a HUGE intensification of this job.
This paper by @rogaly at Uni of Sussex, written almost a decade ago, picked up on the changes by interviewing farmers https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=mwp36.pdf&site=252
On top of that, the season is now 6 to 8 months, not 6 weeks, so it's neither a summer job for students nor a permanent job for someone who wants to sign a tenancy agreement or raise a family. The work is 7 days, and irregular, so workers live on site.
I don't agree with those who say "Brits just won't do it". They do tough antisocial jobs if there's a premium that compensates (think oil rigs). But fruit picking pays similar to working in a shop or cafe.
For migrants, fruit picking in the UK DOES pay a premium to jobs at home. When the premium shrinks, they stop coming & recruiters look further east to poorer countries. http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/scottish-affairs-committee/the-future-of-scottish-agriculture-post-brexit/oral/100514.html
It follows that if the UK govt (& Brexiteers) really want to "wean the country off" low-paid migrants, pay and conditions will have to go up a lot. Robots can't square the circle (not yet). And that means food prices will have to rise. Trade-offs exist.
The UK has v cheap food, relative to similarly rich countries, so this might be a trade off you're happy to make. Some will say "it will hurt the poor, who already rely on food banks" but the problem there isn't food prices, it's inadequate floor on incomes, & housing costs.
Some more charts on food prices, because they're interesting. Which country stands out here? (HFCE is household final consumption expenditure) https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Price_level_indices_for_food,_beverages_and_tobacco,_2019_(EU-27%3D100)_dec.png
Here, you can see the poor do spend a bigger % of their budgets on food than the rich, but for me, the elephant in the room is housing costs.
But the govt doesn't seem to be thinking about this at all. Instead it's chiding farmers for not employing more Brits, & quietly expanding a seasonal worker visa pilot to bring people in from Ukraine and Moldova. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/seasonal-workers-pilot-request-for-information/seasonal-workers-pilot-request-for-information
