They have to if they want to remain in that business. One of the Farm Fresh farms is the company that I was thinking of, their entire business is soft fruit https://www.farmfreshpo.co.uk/ (looks like farmfreshpoo ) and one of the chain supplying Tesco. It isn't a small PYOJdsk wrote: ↑16 May 2023, 9:12amMy emboldening.tim-b wrote: ↑16 May 2023, 9:09amIt follows that farmers have to move from the free accommodation/low-wage model that they've adopted so that local people can earn more than they would in a factory.Tim-b
There aren't many Brits willing to pick fruit in all weathers whatever the wage when they can earn as much without being cold,wet and miserable all day long on piece work working to a deadline when there's better jobs out there.
For the record I know of several uni students who would work picking during the summer hols had the farmers not been stuck pre-2016. Talk of not wanting work year-round is just that unless farmers adapt and try so that we get sprouts at Chrimbo
...
As upthread... there isn't any "have to". They can leave the crops unpicked, as they have done, or abandon production, as they have done.
Jonathan
If you can bear Clarkson being his on-screen persona, watch his farming series https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10541088/
It really does open your eyes to the pooh-show that is planning and DEFRA in the UK.
This isn't a Brexit/EU-problem, it's a UK political problem that's been brewing for decades...~80% self-sufficiency in 1984, ~60% today