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The government is weighing up options for fixing labour shortages in the food sector, including possible changes to visa arrangements for seasonal workers. Environment secretary George Eustice has suggested that changes to the Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Scheme (SAWS) – a quota-based scheme that allows farmers to recruit from overseas – were being considered, amid concerns about possible food shortages and panic-buying this Christmas. The SAWS scheme saw 30,000 temporary workers admitted to the UK this year to fill vacancies mostly on fruit and vegetable farms, but the food production sector is still lacking workers. At an emergency meeting organised by the National Farmers Union this week, representatives from across the food supply chain said the labour crisis – driven partly by Brexit and Covid-19 – had resulted in empty shelves in supermarkets and food left on farms as there were no workers to pick it up or process it. They have written a letter to the prime minister, urging him to bring in a 12-month “Covid Recovery Visa” to enable organisations to recruit critical roles as a short term response to the labour shortage. The letter also urges the government to consider a permanent, revised and expanded Seasonal Worker Scheme for UK horticulture to ensure it meets the industry’s needs, as well as an urgent review by the Migration Advisory Committee on the impact of ending free movement on the food and farming sector. The letter has been signed by organisations representing food producers, retailers and logistics firms. It says: “It is a travesty that this is happening in parallel with UK food producers disposing of perfectly edible food as it either cannot be picked, packed, processed or transported to the end customer. Every day there are new examples of food waste across the industry, from chicken to pork, fruit and vegetables, dairy and many other products. The food is there, but it needs people to get it to the consumers.”
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