Fears over Brexit are not solely to blame for a seasonal worker shortage which threatens to cause farms throughout Tayside and Fife no end of problems, it has been claimed.
The Courier revealed earlier this month how some farmers have been forced to go on recruitment trips to Eastern Europe amid a crippling labour shortage, with Tim Stockwell, of Barnsmuir Farm near Crail, revealing he had offered loans “in desperation” to get people working instead of losing crop.
However, suggestions the UK’s imminent exit from the EU has caused the lack of workers has divided elected members on Fife Council after Liberal Democrat group leader Tim Brett called on council chief executive Steve Grimmond to write to ministers to express concern about the apparent shortage of pickers.
His motion to full council, which also called for ministers to urgently agree a new version of the Seasonal Agriculture Workers Scheme (SAWS) which was stopped in 2013, was challenged by Dunfermline Central Conservative councillor Alan Craig, who claimed the current situation was a “management” problem rather than a Brexit issue.
With Brexit looming, Mr Brett said EU citizens from Poland, Bulgaria and Romania are returning home and will not be back, leaving berry fields, vegetable growers, hotels and cafes here to feel the pinch.
Highlighting the case of Barnsmuir, which supplies broccoli for every Morrisons supermarket in Scotland, Mr Brett said: “Their workers have faced a pay cut because of the fall in the value of the pound against the Euro.
“The distance from home and the Scottish weather become more important when you don’t get paid as much.
“And they are wondering whether Britain really wants them when they hear that immigrants are a problem.
“The growth at Barnsmuir has come with the advance of technology and the availability of good workers in sufficient numbers. Longer picking seasons mean a greater demand for pickers.
“But even if every available east Fife worker was to step forward there would still not be enough of them to meet the demands of the seasonal work.
“Anyone who tells you we can simply replace seasonal pickers from eastern Europe with workers from east Fife has been eating too much broccoli.
“Even if the pound recovers, even if the weather improves, even if Scotland gets geographically closer to Bulgaria it will still take years to recover from the impression that Britain doesn’t want any foreigners in our country.”
However, Mr Craig said: “The National Farmers Union has known about this problem for five or six years.
“I think we’re living in cloud cuckoo land if we’re depending on workers from other countries. For me it’s a management problem.
“You can only change the environment people operate in and it’s not going to solve anything writing to UK ministers.”
His colleague Rosyth councillor Tony Orton also accused Mr Brett of using the issue as a “Liberal attack on Brexit” rather than worrying about farm workers.
“This isn’t just the UK – Australia, Canada and the USA, particularly in California, have exactly the same problem,” he maintained.
“The economy in Romania and Bulgaria has improved, their unemployment has gone down and workers are making choices.”
