Farmers cannot go back in time

Sir, – I write in response to David Dewar’s recent letter headed “farmers also partly to blame” (July 26) apropos the shortage of foreign fruit pickers, and his proposal to fill the shortfall with our local unemployed and 16+year-olds.

Yes, farmers are partly to blame but not in the way he suggests.

Their fault is that agriculture got too efficient too quickly, reducing the workforce to “farmer and son/ daughter-only” on the vast majority of enterprises across the country.

Farmers got out of the habit of managing a workforce and to now ask them to manage a squad of people who, in a lot of cases, would be reluctant employees would be a step too far without the

appropriate training or support.

Mr Dewar’s idea will be on the lips of a massive proportion of the population, brexiteers or otherwise, and indeed I myself have sympathy for it.

However, as someone who has managed people from team leader to factory manager, I can think of nothing more stressful than trying to get product to the farm gate within deadlines and stringent quality criteria with a rag-tag and bobtail workforce.

The high level of supervision required would be cost prohibitive with the farmer absorbing all of the extra cost because the processors feeding the profit hungry supermarkets would not compromise their own bottom line profitability.

It would also be too simplistic to advocate going back to the old days when “going to the berries and the tatties” was part of the way of life for many people from challenging income brackets.

The growers had manageable acreages to coincide with labour availability and the consumer demand.

Then, the consumer accepted that the produce was seasonal.

Now, the seasons for the various berries in the shops has elongated out of all proportion to meet the consumer’s new perception of what should be available to them all year round.

The farmers have invested huge sums of money to create the conditions to meet this new demand and so for them to revert to the old ways would be catastrophic.

Great idea David, but wholly impractical without some joined up co-operation at all levels from farmers to politicians.

Neil Dewar. Emmock Farmhouse, Tealing, Dundee.