English farmers,

[alfred]

Recently i read of English farmers are  trying to recruit pickers for their produce from places as far afield as Nepal and Tajikistan,
why are we not recruiting from the people on benefits , there must be thousands of potential people available to work on the farms, without trying to recruit from abroad,

Q;  what are your thoughts on farmers recruiting from far away places.


 

[klondike]

I can think of some reasons...

It's a backbreaking job and a big chunk of anything they earn would be deducted from their benefits payment. That would probably bring the effective rate down to about £5 an hour.

How many live near where the farm work is? How long would it take the reach there? What would it cost?

Don't run away with the idea that it is an unskilled job. Doing it at the sort of speed the farmer would expect is far from unskilled.

[Raven]

When We were growing up there were lorries picking up the workers and returning them home at the end of the day. We kids used to go to both the Berry and the Tattie Picking in these lorries. Great fun. I used to share a patch with one of my sisters as it was too much for us on our own, but there was never a foreign face in all the years we went. Lot of Irish voices though.
I don't understand why it was all stopped.

[klondike]

I don't understand why it was all stopped.

Benefits culture. Why bust a gut when you can get just as much for watching TV?