Working on harvest headache

Vegetable producer sure it can get round lack of labour

By Joe Watson

Published:

One of Britain’s main organic vegetable growers is confident it can overcome a potential shortage of migrant harvest workers.

Forres-based Tio is the latest to criticise the government’s decision to restrict applications to the seasonal agricultural workers scheme to people from Romania and Bulgaria as well as cut the numbers who qualify for entry into the UK to 16,250.

Managing director William Rose said the change had the potential to inflict considerable damage on an agricultural industry that relied on migrant staff to harvest fruit and vegetables and which has repeatedly warned over recent weeks that tens of thousands of tonnes of produce may be left to rot in fields this year because of a shortage of workers.

Mr Rose added: “This has given us a problem. The change is inexplicable. Who is benefiting from this government policy? Absolutely no one; it just makes life more difficult and means we can’t get people who are delighted to do the work we ask of them.”

Mr Rose is confident Tio will cope, but warned it would have to undertake considerable “unnecessary extra work” to resolve the issues it faces. Tio annually grows and processes about 20,000 tonnes of organic carrots, swedes, parsnips and potatoes. It is among the main suppliers of UK organic root vegetables to Tesco.

The business has 62 full-time staff in its processing base at Forres and growing operations, but this swells to almost 200 at peak periods.

Mr Rose was speaking as the firm’s accounts revealed a £162,051 jump in pre-tax profits to £251,586 for the year to May 31, 2007.

He said the current year had presented significant challenges because of weather issues that led to crop quality problems, increased disease and water-logged fields. He, however, praised Tesco which had worked with it through the difficulties and been “very sensible”.

He added: “Yes, it has been a challenging year but we’re coming out of it feeling strong and fit and looking forward to the season ahead. We’re quite excited about it.”

He expects demand for root crops to grow in the year ahead as the credit crunch is likely to result in more people eating at home which should boost demand for vegetables.

Tio has in the last year doubled the size of its Forres base, a move that should result in an extra 10 staff being hired once building and installation work is completed.

Mr Rose said the extension would allow it to increase capacity and process more high-value products. It is installing an automatic optical grading system for carrots to boost quality.

Mr Rose grows about 500 acres of root crops in his own right, but the firm also has farmer-growers across the north-east as well as in Norfolk and Italy to ensure year-round supplies.