Labour shortage will affect farm

Mr Bowden said local people do not apply for fruit-picking jobs

A Shropshire farmer fears he will lose acres of crops this summer because of a shortage of fruit pickers.

Michael Bowden said a labour shortage in June meant his Ashford Carbonell farm lost eight acres of strawberries and he fears it is set for more losses.

He partly blames change to the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme, which is no longer open to non-EU workers.

The government says it is "phasing out low-skilled migration" from outside the EU" and wants farms to use EU workers.

The Saws scheme - which has previously enabled workers from non-EU countries to do low-skilled work in the UK - is now restricted to 16,250 Romanians and Bulgarians, new members of the EU.

The government said migrants from EU countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic would plug the labour gap.

However, Mr Bowden said many people from Eastern Europe were "going home" because the pound had weakened against their own currencies.

Picking peak

He said the eight acres of fruit lost in June was "a lot in the context of our business".

"We were very, very short and we lost quite a lot of fields of strawberries," he said.

"At the moment we are okay, but later there's going to be another peak and we're going to be short again and be looking for people."

He said local people did not generally respond to job adverts, or they tended to work for short periods.

"Historically we have used the Saws scheme for 20 years and we have always found them to be very good workers with a very good work ethic."

He added that there were many people in Bulgaria who wanted to come and work under the Saws scheme, but they were not being allocated under the quota.

The Home Office says low-skilled migration from outside the EU was being phased out because "businesses should hire those close to home first".

It also blames the changes to Saws on the unique position of Romanians and Bulgarians who, unlike other EU workers, have restrictions placed on them working in the UK.

It said it could not restrict labour market access for them while allowing non-EU workers to carry out the same work.

The National Union of Farmers has opposed the changes and says the rules will exacerbate the labour shortage caused when the Saws scheme cut its quota from 25,000 to 16,520 in 2004.