A fresh rallying call has been made for British agricultural workers and crop pickers as the soft fruit season soon approaches.
Fruit picking in parts of the UK will reach a peak in high summer ahead of the main season for vegetable harvesting in the autumn.
But due to the global nature of the Covid-19 crisis, growers remain concerned that it will be difficult to recruit the 80,000 workers that are required to undertake seasonal work.
This is despite a record demand for UK agricultural jobs, with one recruitment website witnessing a huge 83 percent spike in applications.
It comes as HMRC recently confirmed that individuals who have been furloughed are able to take up alternative employment on a temporary basis during the period of their furlough if contractually enabled to do so by their employer.
Farming groups are now promoting their recruitment services to individuals who may be out of work or on a temporary furlough period to take up paid work in the countryside.
NFU Scotland is one group issuing a rallying call for people to assist on-farm ahead of the Scottish soft fruit season staring in earnest in the next few weeks.
Having launched its employment-matching service on 20 March, the union has seen 'unprecedented levels' of visits and has already matched a number of Scottish growers to available workers.
But NFU Scotland’s Horticultural Working Group Chairman, James Porter, who farms in Angus, said growers need 'all hands to the pump' to ensure harvesting and distribution can continue.
“The initial feedback from NFU Scotland’s employment-matching service, launched three weeks ago, is hugely encouraging," he said.
"I am delighted that it has already proven successful in matching individuals who had found themselves out of work due to the public health crisis with essential employment in our countryside.
“With the clarification from HMRC this week that workers furloughed, I hope we might encourage them to view our initiative as an excellent way for furloughed individuals to top up their wages also."
However, Mr Porter said it remains 'extremely unlikely' that growers will be able to recruit the volume of workers that are needed during the fruit and vegetable seasons.
As such, NFU Scotland is calling on the UK government to participate in the EU Commission’s guidelines which ensure the exchange of seasonal farm workers between member states so that harvesting, planting and tending can be carried out.
Another industry initiative has seen over 10,000 British people sign up to work at more than 500 farms across the country as part of the ''Feed the Nation' campaign.
In a new update, charity Concordia said roles for April are currently filled – but applications are being accepted from people looking for work from May onwards.
