Farming Today This Week

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Farming Today: 25/04/20 - Farming Today This Week

25/04/20 - Farming Today This Week

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 25/04/20 - Farming Today This Week

Who will pick our fruit and veg this year?

Charlotte Smith explores the issue farm labour at home and abroad.

Fruit and vegetable farmers are concerned travel restrictions put in place because of the coronavirus mean there will be a lack of seasonal labour to harvest crops this summer. Some have already charted flights to bring in workers from abroad, meanwhile here, the Government has launched a Pick for Britain campaign. While tens of thousands of Brits have registered an interest in working on a farms this summer, Farming Today listeners have been in touch saying that they’ve applied without success. Charlotte Smith finds out what's going on.

Continuing on the theme of agricultural workers, the BBC has spent several months investigating allegations of exploitation of pickers in Spain. At this time of year, many of the peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers on UK supermarket shelves, come from Southern Spain. There, a huge work force of mostly migrants pick crops in tens of thousands of hectares of plastic greenhouses.

We catch up with our Farming Today Audio Diaries to find out how rural live across the UK is coping with coronavirus.

And former Farming Today presenter, Richard Sanders, has died at the age of 62. We share some memories.

Presented by Charlotte Smith
Produced by Heather Simons

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