Why won’t Brits pick vegetables for £30 an hour?

Lowland1

Member
Mixed Farmer
Migrants have no social life, no relatives to hold parties, no grannys funeral, daughters school play etc etc etc
Hence they only want to work
I worked my way around America and Australia on farms. Earning enough on the way to see what I wanted and to have a very good time. Obviously it wouldn't have been as much fun if I hadn't been driving harvesters and tractors rather than picking tomatoes with the Mexicans but you can still work hard and have fun.
 
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stewart

Member
Horticulture
Location
Bay of Plenty NZ
Migrants have no social life, no relatives to hold parties, no grannys funeral, daughters school play etc etc etc
Hence they only want to work
Migrants do work hard, but you are incorrect to assume they have no social life, I’ve been to plenty of parties, weddings and birthday celebrations for kids, perhaps because I treat them as I would anyone else I get to enjoy their different culture.
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
Migrants have no social life, no relatives to hold parties, no grannys funeral, daughters school play etc etc etc
Hence they only want to work

One of the managers at my first Kiwi job said there were pros and cons of having "imports" back for multiple seasons. A pro was, you knew where everything was and how things worked etc A con was as you spent more time here you got to know people, got a partner and wanted to do other things a bit more, which wasn't what an Ag contractor really wanted. If they sent you home for the day because it was wet, they expected you to be straight back in if they changed their mind or work every weekend etc.
All good for a while ( I liked plenty of hours) but you get sick of not being able to make plans.
Its probably true of Ag contracting work in general though, not just working in another country.
 

An Gof

Member
Location
Cornwall
Cornwall has low frost risk because of sea insulation, post war lots of farmers grew winter brassicas that would fill the gap in frost season south east England, these brassicas would be shipped to markets and collection centres, the farmers would have their own small gangs of UK cutters and packers

Around 20 years ago the supermarkets decided to contract all their produce to 3 growers, David Simmons in the article being one of them, the only reason they could scale their businesses up to the size required was cheap foreign labour, all the local cutters and packers disappeared into other jobs

I was in the Crossroads motel with 235 Cornish brassica growers in 1999 for a meeting when the price crashed because of no market for it, now you could get all the growers around a table in the pub, with more grown than before

Even the Crossroads Motel has changed now 🤣🤦
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
I'm constantly amazed on these types of thread at the (apparently) genuine lack of understanding at the cost of living for people who earn the least.

If you can't afford to buy, you rent, which is much more expensive than having a mortgage. Rents routinely consume well over 50% of someones take home pay.

Assuming I paid average rent for where I live (West Mids £755, South West £950 - assume closer to 950 as when I was looking to rent most were in the £850-950 range for a 2 bed place)

So, per month:
Rent: 850 (could easily be more)
Council tax (with single person reduction, band B): £100 per month (almost exactly, this year)
Electric: £50/month (not including heating, which is wood for me)
Water: £35/month
Fuel (to get to work) £30/week (£120/month)

That's £1065 before I've bought food every week or heated my home in winter.

If a nurse, after three years on the job, on the third band takes home £1500/month that leaves £400/month for food, heating, clothes, other bills (car insurance, repair, etc etc)
Why is someone on an entry level position attempting to have sole occupancy of a 2 bed property? People have unreasonable expectations.
 

Lincoln75

Member
Around 20 years ago the supermarkets decided to contract all their produce to 3 growers, David Simmons in the article being one of them, the only reason they could scale their businesses up to the size required was cheap foreign labour, all the local cutters and packers disappeared into other jobs.
Cant be right , British workers became lazy overnight just as migrant workers started to appear ;) .
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
Migrants do work hard, but you are incorrect to assume they have no social life, I’ve been to plenty of parties, weddings and birthday celebrations for kids, perhaps because I treat them as I would anyone else I get to enjoy their different culture.
They are obviously not fresh migrants.
They have assimilated and aquired a social life as most people do.
I had a gang of kiwis for harvest 95, the hottest year ever round here.
The hay season was fast and furious and the winter barley was ten days earlier than usual and we carried on straight Into it
Then osr and wheat ripeneing so fast that few could keep up and tremendous yields to boot.
Every day in august was 30c or more, and it was so unusual the local men were knocking off at 5 as few had aircon then
Some places ran out of storage and had to stop.
We got finished 1500 acres on aug 30th, and it then rained for three weeks, and my gang were off to munich to get drunk
A local estate had 600 acres uncut which all grew in the ear, a total write off.
 

Lincoln75

Member
They are obviously not fresh migrants.
They have assimilated and aquired a social life as most people do.
I had a gang of kiwis for harvest 95, the hottest year ever round here.
The hay season was fast and furious and the winter barley was ten days earlier than usual and we carried on straight Into it
Then osr and wheat ripeneing so fast that few could keep up and tremendous yields to boot.
Every day in august was 30c or more, and it was so unusual the local men were knocking off at 5 as few had aircon then
Some places ran out of storage and had to stop.
We got finished 1500 acres on aug 30th, and it then rained for three weeks, and my gang were off to munich to get drunk
A local estate had 600 acres uncut which all grew in the ear, a total write off.
I believe all of that apart from a month at 30c without rain in the Lothians :ROFLMAO: .
 

SteveHants

Member
Livestock Farmer
Why is someone on an entry level position attempting to have sole occupancy of a 2 bed property? People have unreasonable expectations.

The salary I posted was at grade 3 after 3 years experience, so not an entry level position.
If the nurse went straight into their nursing degree at 18, they would be 21 by the time they qualified, plus three years makes them at least 24.

Nurses are overwhelmingly women, so may well have children....

I took an approximate average rent based on the average rents closest to where I live. Should a nurse not be able to afford the average rent in their area?
 
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Lincoln75

Member
The salary I posted was at grade 3 after 3 years experience, so not an entry level position.
If the nurse went straight into their nursing degree at 18, they would be 21 by the time they qualified, plus three years makes them at least 24.

Nurses are overwhelmingly women, so may well have children....

I took an approximate average rent based on the average rents closest to where I live. Should a nurse not be able to afford the average rent in their area?
A band 5 ( degree usually required ) starts on over £25k , not bad for someone with virtually no experience and only 21 years old, (five years on they can be on well over £35k ) , what other post grads get considerably more ? only law/finance/banking seems to pay better and you have to be exceptional to get into those industries , unlike nursing where you are guaranteed a job on graduation, they are not hard done by , its just the lefty media like to make out they are as everyone knows one day they may need a nurse so many take the bait.
 

SteveHants

Member
Livestock Farmer
A band 5 ( degree usually required ) starts on over £25k , not bad for someone with virtually no experience and only 21 years old, (five years on they can be on well over £35k ) , what other post grads get considerably more ? only law/finance/banking seems to pay better and you have to be exceptional to get into those industries , unlike nursing where you are guaranteed a job on graduation, they are not hard done by , its just the lefty media like to make out they are as everyone knows one day they may need a nurse so many take the bait.
25K isn't that great in the South East- average rent about £900 pm, no.

Again, you can keep digging, because it's clear that what you'd like to believe is that nurses are simply feckless for experiencing in work poverty and apparently don't work very hard anyway.
I've posted up figures to show how far that money gets you, but you'd clearly prefer to ignore them so that you can feel smug about yourself.

I'll take you seriously when you've actually had some real world experience of any of this, because you clearly haven't.
 

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quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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