pwa wrote: ↑19 Dec 2021, 7:48pm
Taking the example of daffs, if we are willing to pay enough per bunch for the grower to be able to lure workers with attractive pay and conditions, we get daffs. If we aren't willing to pay that much, we shouldn't have them.
Nice theory, but what actually happens is the daffs get grown where they can be grown cheapest, obviously that's not just labour, though it's a sizable proportion of the cost. If you really can't grow daffs elsewhere, there'll be an alternative you can. That already happens of course, at the height of the UK's asparagus season my local greengrocer sells stuff flown in from South America, it's cheaper.
Agricultural labour needs to be migratory, where it's needed when it's needed and somewhere else when it's not. I did a fair bit in the early eighties, it was quite well paid, well enough that I never worked more than eight months a year. Most of those working the fields were from the more traditional traveller communities, whole families working, parked up the farm, or somewhere close, while they did, cash in hand. I can't remember how much cash, roughly equivalent to a weeks dole a day, though it wasn't unheard of to be claiming that as well. I grew up in Kent, I have vague childhood memories of the cockney invasion to pick hops. Though even then, mid 60's, most brewers had started importing cheaper hops from the US and by the time I was a teenager the remaining hops being grown were mechanically harvested.
Times have changed, it's hard to see how it can be made attractive enough to tempt workers and still be economically viable for the producers.