- The British agricultural industry has suffered tremendously during the coronavirus pandemic after many of its usual migrant workers are unable to enter the country.
- To solve this, the UK government launched the “Pick for Britain” campaign, which has been backed by Prince Charles and is aimed at getting the British population to take up farming roles.
- To see how the campaign is going, I visited a farm in northwest England and spent the day picking strawberries.
- Andrew Pimbley, the owner of the farm, usually has a team of Polish workers who help him harvest fruit and vegetables, but this year had to find people from the local area to work for him instead.
- The six-man team includes a 22-year-old pilot who just completed his commercial flying license but has been unable to find a job and a freelance photographer who has run out of work.
- During my shift, I really saw how beneficial the campaign was not only for the farmer but also for the many workers who would much rather have a job during the pandemic than to do nothing at all.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
The British agricultural workforce has borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic after many of its usual migrant workers have been unable to enter the country this year.
As a result, the UK government launched the “Pick for Britain” campaign which is meant to encourage the British population to take up the farming work instead.
The campaign, which was backed by Prince Charles, has been compared to Britain’s Land Army, a movement during The Second World War that saw women working on farms to replace men that were called up to fight.
While the initiative has been beneficial to those who are either furloughed or unemployed, many farmers fear that as the lockdown eases, British workers will start leaving their crop-picking jobs.
I decided to work on a farm in northwest England for a day to find out for myself how the "Pick for Britain" campaign is progressing.
A gaping hole has been left in the British agricultural workforce this year after many of its usual migrant workers are unable to enter the country due to the coronavirus pandemic.
For decades, the country's agricultural industry has been reliant on seasonal migrant workers, a vast majority of which come from Eastern Europe.
But this year, many are unable to help the sector because of travel restrictions and ongoing uncertainties about Brexit and tough labor conditions.
And time is running out: According to the National Farmers Union (NFU), around 70,000 to 80,000 jobs need to be filled before the country enters one of its busiest harvesting seasons.
Without backfill, the sector could see millions of tons of fresh produce rot in the fields, the Independent reported.
"If we weren't able to get that crop harvested, I just think it would be such a sad story," Tom Bradshaw, vice-president of the NFU, told Insider.
"It would just be a travesty if the crop the farmers are growing was left in the field unharvested at a time when we need to be as much fresh fruit and vegetables as possible because it's so healthy," said Bradshaw.
To assist farmers during this time, the UK government launched the official "Pick for Britain" campaign led by Prince Charles. He called on furloughed workers and students to help pick fruits and vegetables for seasonal harvest.
The aim of the campaign, launched on May 19, is to encourage people who either lost their jobs in the pandemic or have been furloughed to take up vacant seasonal farming roles.
"It is hoped those who many have lost their jobs as a result of the crisis - chefs, retail assistants, waiters, and others - will seize an opportunity for a very different kind of work," it says on the Pick for Britain website.
"At this time of great uncertainty, many of our normal routines and regular patterns of life are being challenged," Prince Charles said in the video posted on Twitter.
"If we are to harvest British fruit and vegetables this year, we need an army of people to help."
Tom Bradshaw, the vice-president of the National Farmers' Union, told Insider interest in the scheme had been overwhelming: "The challenge is turning those interested into pickers that are stickers, to use the Prince Charles line. The nature of the job is that it is pretty hard laborious work."
According to Bradshaw, the number of British workers on farms is usually below 1%, but the latest estimate from April was that 25% to 30% of pickers on farms were locally recruited.
Prince Charles compared the initiative to Britain's Land Army, a movement during The Second World War that saw women working on farms to replace men that were called up to the military.
Source: Insider
After reading about this initiative, I decided to see how the Pick for Britain campaign was progressing for myself. So I traveled 20 minutes from my home on the Wirral, in the northwest of England, to a place called Claremont Farm to work as a farmhand for a day.
Claremont Farm has been run by the Pimbley family since 1906 and includes 250 acres of land...
...and two very large rescue pigs.
They also harvest crops like strawberries, kale, cabbage, raspberries, asparagus, broccoli, and more.
Alongside this, the farm runs a "pick your own" enterprise, which includes pumpkin-picking in the fall.
But that's not all. The farm sells all of the fresh produce in its shop.
Andrew Pimbley, who oversees the farm today, told Insider that he's been trying to adapt to the new circumstances.
http://instagr.am/p/B_1ioGKn4ET
The farm usually has a team of Polish workers helping out but as the lockdown loomed, they chose to go home to spend it with their families.
"We knew we were going to struggle and that we weren't going to see them again, so we kind of put the word out there that we were looking for people," Pimbley told Insider.
A recent survey of salad and brassica farmers by the British Growers Association showed that only about a third said they had all or almost all the workers they needed, according to the Guardian.
Jack Ward, the CEO of the Growers Association told the paper: "There's a nervousness about the rest of the season. As we progressively come out of lockdown, some people working on farms will return to their original roles."
"A lot of growers are sensing they are going to be continually topping up the workforce, recruiting and retraining as the season goes on," he added.
Source: The Guardian
Pimbley admits that at first, they were overwhelmed with having to find new workers. But when people started to get furloughed, there was "a sudden new pool of labor" that would usually not be available.
http://instagr.am/p/B_z04pknyy7
Pimbley said that while many people were interested, it was tricky to find workers that could commit to seven days a week.
"I made it sound really unappealing when I interviewed people, describing long hours and grueling work," he said. "Anyone that was still there at the end of the phone call, I asked to come and work with us."
When I turned up at 8:30 am on a Monday morning, I was asked if I could help by picking strawberries for the shop that would open to the public at 10 am.
No time was wasted. Pimbley gave me a quick tour of the farm before showing me the strawberry tents where I would be working.
After a quick explainer on how to pick strawberries without damaging them (use your nails to break the stem), I got to work.
My job was to fill the plastic boxes (seen below) with ripe, juicy strawberries so that they can immediately be sold.
The work was very therapeutic. The long tent I was working in made it easy for me to keep a social distance and with not a lot of people around, I was able to focus on the task at hand.
In the beginning, I was very slow and careful, knowing that I was picking strawberries that would later be sold at the shop.
But I quickly became an expert, making my way down the line at a surprising speed.
Once a box was filled, I left it on the ground and moved on to the next batch.
All the while I was guarded by Aggie, the farm dog, who keeps an eye out for squirrels who like to snack on the strawberries.
I was joined by Dan and Beth, who are part of the six-man team currently working at the farm and had been up at 7 am to pick strawberries.
Beth, who is 24, was working on a farm in Ireland before applying to this job. "I really enjoy working on the farm. We're a tight-knit community and Andrew [the farmer] really gives us a lot of freedom."
"It gives you a sense of purpose. I get to wake up every morning and be productive," she said.
The six-man team also includes a freelance photographer whose work dried up, a sales representative at a local brewery which had to shut during the pandemic, and an 18-year-old student who had been working part-time in the shop.
Pimbley himself has also had to lend a helping hand. "It's been twenty years since I've done any harvesting, so I've been getting back into it," he told me.
"For a lot of people, this has been a one-off opportunity to stop and pause, and think about what you're doing, but for me, its been the complete opposite," he added. "I've only had one day off in 10 weeks and I've seen my kids less during coronavirus."
Work hours for the team vary, depending on the season and what work is needed. "For asparagus season we had to be up very early, and the work was tiring, but there are also days where we get to leave early because not much has to be done," Beth told me.
Dan, who just completed his commercial pilot license in March, been unable to find a job in the aviation industry. Having worked on-and-off on the farm since he was 13, he thought it would be a good time to help.
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"You don't just want to sit at home all day, waiting for this to be over. It's been so nice to have something to do, although the work can sometimes get a bit tedious," Dan told Insider.
The 22-year-old has been applying to several airline jobs while working on the farm but hasn't heard back from any of them yet.
And while some changes had to be made to adjust to this time, Pimbley told me that the farm is still running pretty well.
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"So our trade in our shop has nearly doubled after we created a new online ordering system. What we've lost in the cafe, the turnover we've made up in the shop," he said.
After speaking to some of the workers, I really understood how rewarding this job can feel. While getting up early to work on a farm might seem unappealing to some, I thought it was a great way to spend my day.
The system seems to work for both parties: The farmer is getting the help that he needs, while the workers are able to be productive, make new friends, and earn money.
"The jobs have always been there," Pimbley told Insider. "It's not like they've suddenly appeared. They [English people] seemed to have drawn a line under you know manual work or fieldwork, agricultural work they see it as below them."