When my freelance work evaporated as the lockdown loomed, I started looking for opportunities to keep myself safe and busy, and soon began volunteering on a community-supported agriculture project to support the farm’s operations as the saw their veg box orders nearly double in the space of a week.
With millions of people out of work, there has been a sharp rise in the number of people looking for work on farms. In early April, TotalJobs reported an 83% increase in agricultural roles in a month as the UK government confirmed that furloughed workers are able to seek alternative employment in the fields if their contract allows.
This booming interest in agricultural work has been spurred on by the government’s war-like rhetoric to build a “land army” of seasonal workers to harvest the season’s crops. Earlier this month, the Department for Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) launched the Pick for Britain campaign to get 70-80,000 seasonal workers onto the fields, 99% of which are usually filled by EU nationals who are less able to take up the roles due to travel restrictions.
With a long period of uncertain income ahead of me, I submitted an application for paid field work through farming recruiter Concordia. After completing a one-way video interview that ends with the question “have you paid any money to or feel pressured by anyone in the process of applying for this role” – I was soon offered work on a farm in rural Linconshire, where the only option was to commit to 4-5 months of six day working weeks, and paying to live on-site in a six-berth caravan with other workers.
Now, I am no stranger to hard work and long physical days – I’ve worked and volunteered on building projects, farms and as a bike mechanic. And even though the offer of 45+ hours of paid work per week is appealing to my currently jobless self, the offer seems like indentured labour. It gives little flexibility for pickers to fit the work into their existing lives and commitments, and not to mention the issues of living in close quarters with other workers during a global pandemic.
“Low-paid labour is propping up the farming industry, and, so far, a global pandemic hasn’t halted this.”
Offers of work, however, seem to be rare. Speaking to fellow furloughed friends, many complain that the urgency of getting domestic workers onto the fields doesn’t match up with their experiences of being told that all roles have already been filled.
Earlier this month, Concordia reported receiving 36,000 applications for farm work in just ten days. With 6,000 of those completing a video interview, the agency made 900 offers but have seen only 112 people accept the roles. Meanwhile, the company chartered a flight from Romania with 160 seasonal workers onboard to meet recruitment needs.
The industry’s large-scale recruiting system has a clear vested interest in workers who are able to sign away their regular lives to live and work full time on the farm for minimum wage and to cast aside pre-existing commitments. Low-paid labour is propping up the farming industry, and so far, a global pandemic hasn’t halted this, despite the risk to workers and the rural communities they’re going into, and the need to support the two million newly unemployed.
But this is not a short term problem to be fixed during the pandemic, only to return to business as usual later down the line. Coronavirus has only revealed the weaknesses in the system, and farming must undergo a radical shift if it is to survive the future uncertainties brought about Brexit. The UK’s horticultural industry already predicts that without migrant labour, there will be less fruit picked, and that the price of fresh fruit and veg will rise. Already in autumn 2019, tonnes of crop was left to rot in fields due to a shortage of pickers and packers in the face of ongoing Brexit uncertainty. Food sovereignty is now more important than ever.
But how do we break out of this locked-in cycle, whereby the low prices that consumers are prepared to pay for their produce perpetuates a cycle of low pay and exploitation (and in extreme cases, modern slavery) of farm workers?
For some, Brexit is thought to be an opportunity to progress towards a more sustainable local food system in the UK – this disruption brought on by coronavirus also gives us a moment to reflect. Tim Lang, professor of Food Policy at the Centre for Food Policy at City University wrote in his latest book published in March 2020: “Some analysts privately think only crisis will allow the conditions for suitable scale of change… my judgement is that signs of cracks are apparent already”.
Lending a hand in the fields, I am made to feel like a valuable part of the food system, carefully working on the land so it provides for us and we have food on our plates. A far cry from the conveyor belt approach of seasonal picking on industrial farms, community-supported agriculture schemes bridge the gap between farmers and consumers, bringing more transparency to the food system and showing us how different our relationship to food could be.
And it seems like that relationship is blossoming. As coronavirus continues to expand among the population, so too does the demand for veg boxes and local produce. A recent poll commissioned by the RSA’s Food, Farming and Countryside Commission said that we are seeing “significant changes to our relationship with food, family and the environment” emerging since lockdown, including a 6% increase in people who have tried a veg box or ordered from a local farm for the first time, and 42% saying they value food more.
In this time of increased engagement with local and short-chain food supply, paired with empty supermarket shelves and feelings of food insecurity, this is our opportunity to build foundations for changing the food system for the better.
Athlyn Cathcart-Keays is a freelance researcher, writer and community organiser.