Fruit pickers’ protest

Fruit and vegetable pickers, mainly from Latin America, protested outside the Home Office last month. The workers have come to the UK on the Seasonal Worker Scheme, a short-term visa route for for migrant workers to work temporarily in the horticulture and poultry sectors.

The pickers were demanding an end to the exploitation of migrant workers in farming, saying they have been treated “like animals”.

The protest was backed by the Landworkers’ Alliance — an organisation representing small farmers, growers, foresters and land-based workers — the Unite union and the United Voices of the World union.

It came in advance of employment tribunal hearings where the workers are claiming unlawful deduction of wages, unfair dismissal, discrimination and harassment against Haygrove, an agricultural business running five farms in the UK growing berries.

Haygrove employs more than 1,000 people from a variety of countries to pick fruit. It uses a visa programme introduced after Brexit when fruit was left rotting in fields because there was no one to pick it.

Catherine McAndrew of the Landworkers Alliance, said there was “widespread exploitation” of people on the seasonal worker visa, partly because farms are under pressure from supermarkets to drive down prices.

Research by her organisation found that for a £2.30 punnet of strawberries, the farm received 50p — of which just 5p was profit — while workers received just 18p after tax deductions, visa and accommodation.