necessity is the mother of invention, if they can't get the help maybe some enterprising young man/woman will come up with something to do it with less people.

but I like the idea of making the welfare recipiants picking berries for their cash

Another way of looking it it is that if you can't get workers at the rate you are offering then you need to increase your rates. It's called the free market.

>>It's called the free market.<<

True, Henry. Of course if these people really believed in the free market - and not just when it's in line with their ideology - they would be in favour of the free flow of labour. Get on yer bike, and all that.

But living is easy with eyes closed. :)

Farmers really are a bunch of tight-arsed swindlers, and I know because I was cheated by a local farmer at the end a potato-picking season in Angus 30 years ago.

Firstly, who picked the berries before the Easties arrived? It was the the locals.
The farmers then discover that they can pay east Europeans less than the locals so, good-bye locals. Now that the farmers are running short of east Europeans, all they need to do is raise the pay to a level which makes it worthwhile for a local to work for, and the problem is solved. The farmers will moan and whinge and try and get the government 'to do something'.

Unnatural to you and me but perfect sense to a socialist ruling cabal that seeks to import a new set of voters via mass immigration.

Depending on the season, you might even be able to attract high school age kids, teenagers from the city to do some of the harvesting.

When I was in high school, I worked a number of after school and summer jobs. Had someone offered me a chance to live in the country for a month and pick apples for two-three weeke and get paid for it, I'd have done it.

I know that picking (esp stoop picking as with strawberries ) is damned hard work, but it has been done for all of human history and I do not accept that there are no people in Britain ( or America ) willing to do it now. It is very unnatural that a country with structural unemployment should need to import workers for such tasks.

Uh oh. Time machine again. The curse of those who do frequent edits, like me!

Phantom -

Depending on the season, you might even be able to attract high school age kids, teenagers from the city to do some of the harvesting.

Alas, Britain has progressed since 1957.

Britain's urban youth have little to no connection with the countryside. They don't understand it and have no interest. They would rather spend their holidays playing video games, downloading porn, taking drugs, hanging around looking mean with their hoods up and generally getting on everyone's nerves, the surly gits.

A farmer getting any bright ideas would no doubt have a stack of paperwork to complete first. Then there's the insurance. Then the risk assessment. Then the 'elf n safety forms. The the 'elf n safety assessment. Then the 'elf n safety risk assessment.

By the time he's ready for picking, the fruit is rotten and the hoodlums are back to bunking off school.

Even if you could get them into a field, they'd spend half the time chucking fruit at each other and the other half trying to smoke the leaves. And why not? It's their 'rights', see?

The welfare state has done a cracking job in weaning the British off their work habit, the rights culture is making sure we'll never have to do any again.

That's a good point Phantom. Actually my first ever job, the summer after my GCSEs, was picking strawberries.

It was probably the hardest work, and definitely the least well - paid, I have ever done.

Having said that there's got to be people in the same position as I was then. Teenagers who would be willing to pick strawberries for a couple of weeks for more money then they would ever get in pocket money.
Actually I wonder if the timing ie before Summer holidays, is the problem? Not so many student types ont he market.

Pete M - I take your point on NI etc, but given this was all cash in hand work then, frankly, the farmer can normally cut a few corners. I know ours did.

In some parts of Maine, schools close for a period so that the young can help in the potato harvest.

If we want to truly get back to nature, reinstate such practices throughout the UK/US. As if.

This strawberry picking/pickers is a nonsense.
There are plenty of adults & children who see a few days outside in the June sunshine as a pure delight.
Also, the general trend these days is 'pick your own', and Farm-gate Sales.
During the miners strike in 1982, hundreds of lads turned up on the east Anglian fields to pick strawberries; and kipped in haystacks.

For most farmers, these soft fruits are a 'cash-crop' and not their main income. It's pocket money.

The big test for farmers/pickers is during the winter months when few people want to go out picking sprouts and other brassicas in the cold and wet.
But that's another story.

Andy -

but given this was all cash in hand work then, frankly, the farmer can normally cut a few corners. I know ours did.

Glad to hear it. I'm all in favour of not giving the taxman too much work to do. Happily, it's also the moral choice.

--I'm all in favour of not giving the taxman too much work to do. Happily, it's also the moral choice.--

Great minds think alike.