Congratulations! You’ve made it to the second week of this year’s general election spectacular. Are you hanging in there? 

Aside from the obligatory arguments over which type of tree you can grow money on and the above-average tally of faux pas and hasty apologies, it has all felt a bit tepid so far. 

Perhaps the most concerning admission for anyone involved in food – in fact, anyone with access to a kitchen – came from the chops of the PM, who appeared to show little knowledge of how a microwave works last week.

“Gas mark 4, it’s ready to go, prick the lid,” he told gathered supporters as he described his “oven-ready” Brexit plan. Let’s just hope he doesn’t put anything metal in there.

While he clearly didn’t pay attention in home economics, however, Johnson does seem to have listened to concerns raised by British growers in recent months. According to the Daily Telegraph, his Conservative party has pledged to quadruple the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme pilot, from 2,500 temporary workers to 10,000 in 2020.

“Our immigration system should reflect the needs of the farming sector, and expanding and continuing the seasonal workers scheme will be an important part of that,” Defra secretary Theresa Villiers told the Telegraph, although she failed to mention she was a cabinet minister in the very coalition government which decided to scrap the original seasonal workers scheme in 2013. 

Credit where credit’s due, the proposal has been described as a “very positive interim step” by CEO of the British Growers Association Jack Ward.

It’s just that this first tentative step is coming at a time when far greater strides are required. 

Four times more workers is a start, but The Grocer has listened over and over again as exasperated industry figures implore they need at least 10 times that number – a gap not even being plugged by EU workers at the moment. 

Seasonal labour crisis is a serious threat to British farming

British Summer Fruits chairman Nick Marston summed it up best when he said “the extremely welcome increase” is merely a short-term solution, with further increases “needed in the medium term”. 

Even if the Conservatives win a majority at the ballot box, Dominic Cummings gets a knighthood and the Johnson Brexit deal sails through the Commons adorned with Union Jack bunting to the tune of Rule Britannia, it’s unlikely EU workers will be encouraged to work in the UK as they did pre-referendum.

If the previous two autumns are anything to go by, growers could be 30% to 40% short of personnel.  

NFU figures for August 2019 showed a 17.6% shortfall in the number of workers, despite companies recruiting up to a quarter more people as an insurance policy.

“We anticipated the same number of no-shows and early leavers as last year and that’s how it turned out this year,” Beverly Dixon, group HR director at major growers G’s Fresh, told The Grocer last month.

The figures for September and October, which are yet to come, could paint an even bleaker picture.

And the picture is equally uncertain on the Labour side.

This morning on BBC Radio 5 Live, shadow foreign minister Emily Thornberry talked of introducing “managed migration” post-Brexit, despite her party passing a motion at its September conference to “maintain and extend free movement rights” for EU citizens.

Answers on a postcard, please, if you can explain to me how that is meant to give those who rely on EU labour any certainty whatsoever if Labour get into power.

If the two major parties think their post-election, let alone post-Brexit, immigration policies are anywhere near “oven-ready”, they’re in severe danger of getting an unpleasant stomach bug.

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