The National Farmers’ Union Scotland (NFUS) has urged those in the horticultural sector to take part in its seasonal worker visa scheme review.
Chair of NFUS’ horticulture working group, Iain Brown, is calling on all those who make use of seasonal labour to participate in the review.
“Labour is essential to the horticultural industry in Scotland and most of those who are employed on our farms come from overseas,” Brown said.
“Brexit changed the way people were recruited and made accessing seasonal migrant labour much more difficult.
“The Covid pandemic and the tragic war in Ukraine made a challenging situation recruiting seasonal staff much worse. Things have improved, additional visas made available under the scheme have helped, but there is still a lot of room for improvement.”
NFUS has been calling for a review of the seasonal workers visa scheme and a review, being conducted by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), is now underway.
“In the long-term, we will always have a need for seasonal labour, and we need guarantees from the UK government that they will support this,” Brown said.
“A lack of access to seasonal workers would undoubtedly lead to a significant reduction in the amount of home-grown fruit and vegetables on our shop shelves, undermining the UK government’s own ‘farm to fork’ strategy and its ambitions to tackle food security.
“To assist growers, we also need the length of visas to be increased. And it needs to be easier for workers to return to farms year after year, as many of them wish to do.”
A review of the seasonal worker visa scheme, he said, gives improvement opportunities.
“I urge all those who require seasonal workers to complete this NFU Scotland survey and help us secure improvements.”
