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Get ready for more expensive vegetable / fruit prices in UK

Infinite Chaos

Infinite Chaos

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It's a painful watch - 5 local Devon / Cornish adults are tasked with doing "picking work" that a lot of migrant workers have done in the recent past.

These and more likely the others not on film who have less or no qualifications are the ones we hope will be picking fruit and veg in our farms once Brexit and migration controls are fully in place (if it ever gets that far).

BBC Link with video.

(Having read some truly moronic comments on BBC forums about the BBC being anti-Brexit, I'm sure in some quarters there are people who believe the BBC specially put this sequence together to oppose Brexit)
 
Well to be fair, veggie prices will go up regardless across Europe due to the drought conditions in Southern Spain and elsewhere.
 
PeteEU said:
Well to be fair, veggie prices will go up regardless across Europe due to the drought conditions in Southern Spain and elsewhere.
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Is southern Spain a plain?

Does the rain in Spain mainly fall there?


North American cultural thing from many years ago
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Is southern Spain a plain?

Does the rain in Spain mainly fall there?


North American cultural thing from many years ago
Click to expand...

Quoting My Fair Lady? and yes the rain does normally drop mainly on the plains.. but not enough the last 5 years.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Is southern Spain a plain?

Does the rain in Spain mainly fall there?


North American cultural thing from many years ago
Click to expand...


Started out as a Greek cultural thing, see Pygmalion
 
There's something in similar vein on tv tonight (I think) this time Brits being employed as hotel workers (another area of work often filled by European workers.) It's not directly Brexit-related, but the hospitality sector are already screaming for staff. Let's just say there's lots of tears at being asked to do distasteful jobs in the trailer.

What's on TV tonight: My Millionaire Migrant Boss and Eurovision:  You Decide
 
Manc Skipper said:
And crops are left to rot in the ground with nobody to pick them.

UK crops left to rot after drop in EU farm workers in Britain after Brexit referendum | The Independent
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Funny, many of the areas which voted most for Brexit look to be worst hit over the next 15 years according to the latest govt assessment.

Parts of the UK that backed a Leave vote would face the heaviest hit as a result of Brexit, according to estimates by government officials.
The forecasts, seen by MPs, model the 15-year impact of the UK staying in the single market, doing a trade deal with the EU or leaving without a deal.
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I remember seeing farmers voting Brexit saying it was probably economically the wrong thing to do but they felt it the right thing to do. Same with Nissan workers, let's see how this all pans out...
 
These folks are hardly representative. I wouldn't expect 5 people with zero experience whatsoever to be able to compete with experienced workers on their first day at many jobs, let alone one that has such harsh conditions due to weather. As prices go up, innovation will follow or competition will move in from foreign suppliers.
 
backpacker said:
These folks are hardly representative. I wouldn't expect 5 people with zero experience whatsoever to be able to compete with experienced workers on their first day at many jobs, let alone one that has such harsh conditions due to weather. As prices go up, innovation will follow or competition will move in from foreign suppliers.
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Those local people are representative of those who will be expected/forced/drafted in to do the job. The implications of Brexit are looking worse every day, and a lot of damage is alrady done.
 
Manc Skipper said:
Those local people are representative of those who will be expected/forced/drafted in to do the job. The implications of Brexit are looking worse every day, and a lot of damage is alrady done.
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Then let them do it a season and then show how well they perform. More people than not suck their first day of work on a new job productivity-wise. In addition, people cannot be forced to harvest cabbages for London.
 
backpacker said:
~ people cannot be forced to harvest cabbages for London.
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LOL. London will continue to do well despite Brexit.
We'll lose a lot of banking jobs and that may not be a bad thing (Bankers are not the most popular of folks - especially after the 2008 crash) except London's service and financial sector bankrolls a lot of the rest of the country.
 
backpacker said:
Then let them do it a season and then show how well they perform. More people than not suck their first day of work on a new job productivity-wise. In addition, people cannot be forced to harvest cabbages for London.
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Actually.... it has been done before. Several countries in Europe have mandatory rules to receive money from the state. For example, in Norway they told unemployed.. here is a job and it is say far away up north. You take it, or we cut your benefits. In Spain, people are literally put to work to clean streets and country side roads to prevent forest fires and such.

So it can be done if needed.
 
PeteEU said:
Actually.... it has been done before. Several countries in Europe have mandatory rules to receive money from the state. For example, in Norway they told unemployed.. here is a job and it is say far away up north. You take it, or we cut your benefits. In Spain, people are literally put to work to clean streets and country side roads to prevent forest fires and such.

So it can be done if needed.
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That still isn't forcing them to any more than my employer forces me to show up in exchange for a paycheck. If I don't really want to show up, then all they can do is fire me.
 
backpacker said:
These folks are hardly representative. I wouldn't expect 5 people with zero experience whatsoever to be able to compete with experienced workers on their first day at many jobs, let alone one that has such harsh conditions due to weather. As prices go up, innovation will follow or competition will move in from foreign suppliers.
Click to expand...

I think the point is the work is so low skilled that each year most people coming into work such jobs have little experience. In order to lure more people from abroad some farms are establishing accommodation to give the workers whilst they're here, language courses and other little thrills. They're also pushing to get the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme re-introduced. Something the government is studiously avoiding talking about as, well, they seem to believe that the main reason people voted leave was to stop immigrants. Losing free movement from Europe then introducing a scheme that allows people from non-EU countries to come in for six months seems a little counter intuitive.

As for investment, that is already happening. But it takes time and because, globally, picking food relies on cheap labour there is somewhat of a lack of investment in automation and the like. You are right though - after some time that would change. But the key word there is time. A lot of damage to the industry is going to occur before a new balance can be found. And foreign investment seems unlikely to make up the difference, as farming fruit and vegetables in the UK hardly screams 'money maker' to foreign agribusinesses. More likely supermarkets and the like will head to Africa. We get like 85% of our food imports from Europe. We only grow 11%'ish of our own fruit for example. So not only would investment have to focus on making picking less labour intensive, which would require a significant amount of money, farms would also have to dramatically increase production. UK produced fruit even under optimal conditions would be too expensive for the average consumer and it's unlikely we'd be able to grow enough anyway. Defra reckons that defaulting to WTO rules would mean an increase in the price of imported food of around 11%.

So.... I mean I was waffling a bit there but the heading to this post is right. One way or the other, fruit and veg is going to get more expensive because of our leaving the EU.
 
mceschew said:
I think the point is the work is so low skilled that each year most people coming into work such jobs have little experience. In order to lure more people from abroad some farms are establishing accommodation to give the workers whilst they're here, language courses and other little thrills. They're also pushing to get the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme re-introduced. Something the government is studiously avoiding talking about as, well, they seem to believe that the main reason people voted leave was to stop immigrants. Losing free movement from Europe then introducing a scheme that allows people from non-EU countries to come in for six months seems a little counter intuitive.

As for investment, that is already happening. But it takes time and because, globally, picking food relies on cheap labour there is somewhat of a lack of investment in automation and the like. You are right though - after some time that would change. But the key word there is time. A lot of damage to the industry is going to occur before a new balance can be found. And foreign investment seems unlikely to make up the difference, as farming fruit and vegetables in the UK hardly screams 'money maker' to foreign agribusinesses. More likely supermarkets and the like will head to Africa. We get like 85% of our food imports from Europe. We only grow 11%'ish of our own fruit for example. So not only would investment have to focus on making picking less labour intensive, which would require a significant amount of money, farms would also have to dramatically increase production. UK produced fruit even under optimal conditions would be too expensive for the average consumer and it's unlikely we'd be able to grow enough anyway. Defra reckons that defaulting to WTO rules would mean an increase in the price of imported food of around 11%.

So.... I mean I was waffling a bit there but the heading to this post is right. One way or the other, fruit and veg is going to get more expensive because of our leaving the EU.
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Your farms are generally too small as land is too relatively expensive to buy to farm which will always be the bane of British agriculture. It even makes the technology scale-ability an issue because you have to wait until the price drops significantly on new technology to make it affordable generally for smaller producers. The focus probably should be on livestock/dairy and leave it to Tesco, Waitrose et als to deal with delivering the rest at affordable prices.
 
backpacker said:
Your farms are generally too small as land is too relatively expensive to buy to farm which will always be the bane of British agriculture. It even makes the technology scale-ability an issue because you have to wait until the price drops significantly on new technology to make it affordable generally for smaller producers. The focus probably should be on livestock/dairy and leave it to Tesco, Waitrose et als to deal with delivering the rest at affordable prices.
Click to expand...

No worries, Brexit agricultural policy will bring us - pigs that might fly, cows that jump over the moon, which is a moon made of blue cheese, all reinforced by government announcements that crab-apples and curdled milk are the new superfoods.
 
Sven Karma said:
No worries, Brexit agricultural policy will bring us - pigs that might fly, cows that jump over the moon, which is a moon made of blue cheese, all reinforced by government announcements that crab-apples and curdled milk are the new superfoods.
Click to expand...

cheese curds can be tasty.
 
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