Scottish farmers urged to participate in review of worker visa scheme

Scottish farmers who use seasonal labour are being urged to participate in a review of the visa scheme following adverse impacts such as Brexit and the pandemic.

Farmers have an opportunity to influence and improve the scheme, which helps secure around 6,000 seasonal workers to support the soft fruit and vegetable sectors.

The review of the seasonal workers visa scheme, which is being conducted by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), is now underway.

The committee will make recommendations for scheme improvements to the government.

NFU Scotland has launched its own survey to help inform the MAC and influence their recommendations.

Chair of the union's horticulture working group, Iain Brown, who grows soft fruit and vegetables in Fife, said labour was 'essential' to the horticultural industry.

“Brexit changed the way people were recruited and made accessing seasonal migrant labour much more difficult," he said.

"The Covid pandemic and the tragic war in Ukraine made a challenging situation recruiting seasonal staff much worse.

"Things have improved, additional visas made available under the scheme have helped, but there is still a lot of room for improvement."

Industry bodies have warned that a lack of access to seasonal workers would lead to a major reduction in the amount of home-grown fruit and vegetables.

It would also undermine the UK government’s own ‘farm to fork’ strategy and its ambitions to tackle food security.

To assist growers, Mr Brown said the length of visas should be increased, adding that "it needs to be easier for workers to return to farms year after year, as many of them wish to do".

“In the long-term, we will always have a need for seasonal labour, and we need guarantees from the UK government that they will support this.

“A review of the Seasonal Workers visa scheme gives us the opportunity to influence and improve things

" I urge all those who require seasonal workers to complete this NFU Scotland survey and help us secure improvements."

The online survey is mainly multiple choice and should take about 10 minutes to complete.