Growers face mounting issues posed by pandemic

Scheme to source seasonal workers could ease concerns over harvesting

Horticulture producers are grappling with a challenging operating environment that has been turned on its head by Covid-19.

Market dynamics have changed utterly, while access to labour and materials has been impacted significantly.

The horticulture sector is the fourth largest agri-food sector in Ireland based on farm-gate value, directly employing 7,000, with another 11,000 downstream jobs. Of the total sector value (€438m) in 2019, food horticulture represents €370m.

It’s a labour-intensive sector with an additional requirement for seasonal labour for the fruit and vegetable harvest in the summer. The story is the same across Europe: Italy requires 370,000 seasonal workers from abroad every year, France 200,000 the UK 100,000.

Reports from across the continent are that labour availability is very tight. If crops are not fully harvested and supplies tighten, prices will go up.

Traditionally, in Ireland, we have the “hungry gap” in April and May a period where the available stores of Irish vegetables have run out and the new crop is not yet harvested. Typically we import vegetables during this period.

How has the market changed for Irish horticultural food producers during the pandemic?

Demand for fresh produce from the retailers has gone up as people buy more produce from supermarkets as they change to eating at home.

But the food-service market has collapsed.

And the volume increase in supermarket sales appears to be less than the volume sales lost to the food-service sector, meaning there is significant competition among those looking for new markets in retail.

Trevor and Nigel Martin of Waterfall Farms are big suppliers to a range of catering establishments in Co Cork including carrots, parsnips, salad crops and herbs. They have lost 80pc of their sales overnight, with the associated jobs lost too.

They have ploughed in five acres of outdoor crops and have destroyed indoor crops of lettuce.

While they are Bord Bia-approved and ready to divert product to retail channels, changing operationally to do this is not as clear-cut as you might think.

Changing packaging and product specifications takes time to co-ordinate if you are lucky enough to win an order.

They fear their food-service customers will not be back in business any time soon.

They face an uncertain future, but they have sown and planted new crops in the hope that some semblance of a market returns sooner rather than later.

The availability of seasonal workers is another big issue. May-June marks the start of the soft-fruit season, with Irish growers producing almost 10,000t of fruit each year.

Gone are the days of fruit harvesting into buckets in the

Logical Cash crop:

There are concerns that Ireland’s strawberries might not be fully harvested due to a lack of seasonal workers field. Nearly all production is for fresh market retail sales.

Protected (Greenhouse) strawberry production is the mainstay of our soft-fruit industry: it allows for the supply of Irish fruit outside the traditional short season of June to July, and fruit quality is much higher. The system also allows harvesting in unfavourable weather.

The idea that an Irish crop of such value to consumers, producers and the economy might not be fully harvested due to a lack of seasonal workers is difficult to fathom.

It would seem logical that every effort should be made to source, where necessary, the labour required.

This does not mean flooding farms with large numbers of inexperienced staff, at a time when social distancing is the order of the day.

Blending a productive number of experienced staff with well-selected local workers may well be the optimum solution for the 2020 season.

Experienced workers will be required in significant numbers, however.

A national campaign to recruit seasonal workers for the horticulture sector has been initiated, led by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, and supported by the Department of Agriculture, Teagasc and the IFA.

This does not mean flooding farms with large numbers of inexperienced staff, at a time when social distancing is the order of the day

For more information, see www.teagasc.ie/horticulture/ seasonalworkers

Dermot Callaghan is head of Teagasc’s Horticulture Development Department