Waitrose/ITV advert for fruit pickers

[northleedsbhoy Profile]

Has anyone seen this ad? Apparently there is a need for about 70,000 pickers to harvest produce before it goes to waste. I know this is generally done by EU workers but because of various reasons, the main one being the 14 day quarantine being imposed upon entering the country, that’s not going to happen.

At this time of year we produce some fantastic fruit and vegetables and it would be a shame if a lot of it is left to rot because there’s not enough interest in doing the job. There have already been articles about farmers in the US plowing crops back into the field and milk being dumped.

Cheers
NLB

[PatsyMFagan Profile]

Now that's where all the hordes crowding the beaches and public (open) spaces could go to let off steam Oh, hang on; they would have to practice social distancing - completely off their radar

[Earthmaiden Profile]

I hope they find suitable people, there must be so many who would be able to do it competently. I'd have go myself if my back wasn't as creaky as it is!

Remembering days long ago in Norfolk when all through the summer holidays, whole villages of women and children would be collected in the morning to be taken to go fruit picking all day. It provided the money for little extras for the year. The women worked and chatted and the children played. Happy days.

[Suelle Profile Website]

In my recollection, EM, any child older than about 10 worked in the fields!

[northleedsbhoy Profile]

Now that's where all the hordes crowding the beaches and public (open) spaces could go to let off steam Oh, hang on; they would have to practice social distancing - completely off their radar

And the cynic in me would say ‘work’ as well.

Cheers
NLB

[PatsyMFagan Profile]

Yup !

[scullion Profile]

i'm not sure that fruit and veg picking can give some of the younger generation the celebrity and fame that they seem to crave! i used to know someone who went daffodil picking every year - i think she was quite quick at it; one year she earned enough to buy her aga.
'picking' used to be backbreaking work but i think much is now done lying on a trailer - maybe the ache is transferred to the shoulders and neck.
maybe more should be made of the 'holiday' value of such jobs like the old east end 'holiday' of hop harvesting or the vendage.

[Busybee Profile]

Our local asparagus and soft fruit place was desperate for pickers a couple of months ago at the start of the asparagus season but I believe that they are fully staffed now as they enter the strawberry and soft fruit season.

Mostly college/university people if the short snippet on the local tv news is to be believed.

I wonder if they will open for pick your own or if it will all be picked by staff? Has pick you own opened up anywhere further south yet?

BB

[Suffs Profile]

The unspoken problem is that fruit and vegetable picking is a skilled job
The regular pickers from Romania and Bulgaria return year after year. The UK farmers who employ them regularly year after year have invested money in training them in the standards and specifications of each product they’re picking. They live in accommodation on the farms and start picking at first light (4 ish about now) and work until dusk. That is what is needed.

Few British furloughed workers are able to make that sort of commitment from now until the end of the picking season ... they don’t want to or can’t live away from their families and put in those hours seven days a week ... and when furlough ends they’ll have to go back to their usual jobs ... just as they’ve learnt enough and become adept enough to be of use to the farmer and pay back his/her investment in housing and training them.

It’s a lovely idea ... straight out of Darling Buds ... but that’s not practicable. The farmers need organised gangs of trained pickers who know the job. Otherwise in some instances the farmers will be better off letting the crops rot in the fields, much as it goes against the grain. Sad but true.

[Earthmaiden Profile]

Of course, Suffs. The whole operation has become very slick over the years. One hopes that maybe some of the crops can be saved by willing amateurs though, it's still an awful blow for farmers - and consumers.

Our nearest PYO has opened but you have to book a slot in advance. The same with Millets near Abingdon. They allow 4 people (including children) from the same household per booking. They mainly do strawberries at this time of year so they have only offered slots on days when they've been sure there'll be enough ripe fruit. All the slots have been filled so far.

The other one I sometimes go to is at Cobbs farm shop near Hungerford. They usually offer quite a selection to pick across the summer but have announced that they won't be offering PYO this year. They sell in the shop and I think are in with some of the box schemes which have become popular but will need extra pickers so I don't know if their overheads will be suitably covered.

[northleedsbhoy Profile]

Just seen on the news that farm workers are going to be exempt from the quarantine. They must realise that the British won’t be interested in the work or not enough will apply.

Cheers
NLB

[Suffs Profile]

No .... it’s because they’ll be picked up from the airports and taken straight to the farms where they’ll all live in caravans/portacabins etc and will be working all the hours Dog sends, as I said earlier. The only people they’ll mix with are the farmers and their Operations Managers who will all be Social Distancing.

Very few Brits who apply will be suitable for the job. Someone I know has applied. The grandson of a farmer, he can drive tractors and has the relevant forklift type machinery experience and licenses. He has been told by the recruiting agency that that unless he can apply ‘as a gang of six’ and all live on site rather than drive a few miles to work every day he is not suitable. They’re trying to keep the farms as isolated discrete units ... no one travelling back and forth etc.

[Earthmaiden Profile]

Whilst I fully understand the reasons for this (both for efficiency and Covid 19 isolation), I am not totally surprised that many in Britain who are not the shirking sort will feel annoyed that they are excluded when there has been such a national cry for help. Of course farmers want the trained and compliant Romanian gangs but the working conditions/requirements do raise some questions for the future.

[Suffs Profile]

The working conditions themselves are very good ... totally conforming to all EU regulations and regularly checked not just by the regulators but by the supermarkets the farmers are contracted to supply. There are regular proper breaks, plenty of good showers and proper loos (in the fields as well as the living accommodation ... peeing in the hedgerows of fields growing food crops is strictly not allowed) and I’ve paid to stay in holiday cottages with worse beds etc. The pickers choose the work because they can earn enough in a season to go home and take the rest of the year off, perusing a hobby or craft, doing up their much loved cars or helping out in small family businesses, earning little or nothing, because the cost of living in their home country is lower than here.

British pickers couldn’t afford to work all summer then take the winter off.

Not sure about the use of the word ‘compliant’ in this context ...?

[Earthmaiden Profile]

Compliant as in Covid behaviour, not meant in a derogatory way.

I'm all for them doing it, it's an efficient system but still offers food for thought that it doesn't really fit in with expected British work patterns (which seem to have fallen by the wayside anyway). One could argue the pros and cons of that all night and people wouldn't agree - personally I don't have a problem with it, the demands of a lot of jobs here are very disruptive to any sort of family or social life and mental health. With this you can see what you're getting, it seems a lot more attractive!

[Suffs Profile]

It's the old rural/agricultural pattern of work ... still operates in much of the countryside ... it has to ... work wouldn't get done and crops wouldn't get grown and harvested otherwise ... up and out at crack of dawn, pea harvesting carries on all night, every night at pea harvest time ... the peas shed out of the pods if they're harvested in the daytime .... humidity is higher at night so that's why they're harvested then. Grain is harvested as soon as the dew is off the crops until sundown (or sometimes later now they have powerful headlights and if there's not an early evening dew). No weekends for farmers. When we were children I used to ask if we could go to the seaside like other families ....... the answer was invariably, 'Yes, if it's raining'.

In the winter the days are shorter. No 9-5 in the countryside ....... but the UK has become a country of urban dwellers totally out of sync with the rural economy. Large parts of Bulgaria and Romania are still very rural and the folk there are accustomed to the hours and patterns of work and use them to their advantage.

It's a shame that a lot of people didn't understand all of this four years ago ........ was it really four years ago

[Earthmaiden Profile]

I'm still feeling that it's not over until the fat lady sings ... this fat lady's not singing yet. Politics has been such a roller coaster over the past 4 years I still feel that anything could happen and that more drama is to come.

[Suffs Profile]

I was discussing this with bro this afternoon ....... he said they start lifting new carrots between 10pm and midnight ..... they're with the packer by 7am and delivered to the supermarkets by 4pm ready to fill the shelves overnight ........ the new season carrots you buy will have been lifted just over 24 hours ago ... that's why you don't get limp new carrots in supermarkets.

[KeenCook2 Profile]

Suffs, how incredibly interesting! I had no idea/ have never thought about it! Thx

[jeral Profile]

The worst scenario, hopefully to be avoided, is wasting our crops then importing from countries where almost everywhere the picking will be done for little pay by those who'll do it, often immigrants or shipped in.

Just seen on the news that farm workers are going to be exempt from the quarantine. They must realise that the British won’t be interested in the work or not enough will apply.

Cheers
NLB

A minister said in parliament recently that many had applied but few had signed up, so clearly they did realise we'd be stuck without inviting workers from elsewhere.