The average migrant seasonal farmworker on a strawberry farm in the UK retains less than 8% of the retail price for a punnet of strawberries, according to a new report.
The UK soft fruit sector employs 29,000 seasonal workers each growing season - 99% of whom come from overseas.
Many migrant seasonal workers who travel to the UK to work on farms are recruited via the UK government’s Seasonal Worker Visa scheme - a temporary migration programme introduced in 2019 to alleviate post-Brexit labour shortages.
But a new report by farm union the Landworkers’ Alliance, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, New Economics Foundation, Focus on Labour Exploitation and Sustain, focuses on the drivers of exploitation in the scheme.
It reveals that migrant seasonal workers picking soft fruit retain, on average, just 7.6% of the total retail price of the produce - less than 18p per £2.30 punnet of strawberries.
Furthermore, it outlines how workers who have to pay illegal broker fees - money paid by migrant workers to recruitment agencies in their home countries - can result in negative earnings.
This means that after accommodation, subsistence, and travel costs, some workers are essentially left out of pocket and end up paying more to come to the UK and work than they keep as retained income to take home.
One chapter in the report features an extended testimony from a former migrant seasonal worker from Nepal, in which he describes the exploitation of recruitment agencies, the debt associated with taking out loans to pay for agency fees and the need for the UK government to design a more safe and secure seasonal visa scheme.
The report says government should lift restrictions on seasonal worker visas and provide options for renewal and pathways to permanent settlement, access to public funds, and clear access to NHS services.
Government should also address current risks in the Seasonal Worker Visa scheme - including of debt incurred through recruitment agency fees - before any further expansions of the scheme are introduced.
Catherine McAndrew from the Landworkers’ Alliance, and one of the co-authors of the report said: “Our investigation has revealed systemic drivers of exploitation in the migration system and the supermarket supply chain.
"The seasonal workers’ visa has created an indebted workforce tied to their employers. This has facilitated endemic abuse on British farms.
"The benefits of this exploitation go mainly to the handful of supermarkets which dominate the food system, while farmworkers earn wages that are below thresholds for absolute poverty."
She added: "To rectify this, we want supermarkets to pay to fund wage increases and to compensate workers for illegal third party broker fees.
"We demand that the government moves away from the practice of short term, sector specific visa schemes and work with farmworkers to establish new approaches to seasonal labour migration.
"Through direct testimonies by farmworkers, we hope to demonstrate that farmworkers are not passive victims of exploitation, but are both standing up against these injustices and a core part of the solution to bad working conditions.”
