Inexperienced workers make for a difficult harvest

AT STOCKS FARM, on the border between Herefordshire and Worcestershire, where Alison Capper’s family has grown apples and hops for 58 years, the year has a natural rhythm in normal times. Migrants from eastern Europe arrive in February to prepare the orchards—thinning apples, training hops, planting trees. They pick fruit in summer and autumn. By November, they are back home. But this year, they were hard to come by, so Mrs Capper had to supplement her labour force with locals.

Even before covid-19, rising incomes at home and Brexit had put eastern Europeans off. Concerned about labour shortages, the government expanded the seasonal workers’ scheme—a pilot system to allow non-EU farm workers into Britain—from 2,500 to 10,000 in February. Russians, Ukranians and Barbadians filled the gaps in orchards and polytunnels left by Bulgarians, Hungarians and Romanians. Canny farmers continued to bring foreign workers into the country throughout the crisis.

Then came covid-19, and with it travel restrictions. The government created Pick for Britain, a loose network of campaigns, to get British people to fill some 70,000 fruit-picking vacancies. An avalanche of early interest saw Britons make up some 35% of the workforce in May, but they are now down to a tenth. Mrs Capper got a ragged bunch of students, furloughed construction...