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How UK farmers could do without EU workers How UK farmers could do without EU workers
(about 20 hours later)
The fall in immigration from the EU since the referendum vote suggests that Theresa May’s “pull factor” is in the process of correcting itself, an outcome that was easily predictable (Jobs going unfilled as EU workers desert UK, 13 February). There is no reason to expect this trend to reverse, and so it seems that the market forces so beloved by the Conservatives are doing the job for them. In that case there is no need for physical controls on immigration, which are bound to be contentious whatever their form. Not for the first time in her brief premiership, in relation to immigration Mrs May would be well advised to wait and see. So too would the Labour party.Robin WendtChester The fall in immigration from the EU since the referendum vote suggests that Theresa May’s “pull factor” is in the process of correcting itself, an outcome that was easily predictable (Jobs going unfilled as EU workers desert UK, 13 February). There is no reason to expect this trend to reverse, and so it seems that the market forces so beloved by the Conservatives are doing the job for them. In that case there is no need for physical controls on immigration, which are bound to be contentious whatever their form. Not for the first time in her brief premiership, in relation to immigration Mrs May would be well advised to wait and see. So too would the Labour party.Robin WendtChester
• Sorry to read that EU workers are deserting us as a result of Brexit. But there may be another source of supply. During the 1940s a lorry would arrive at school in the morning to take a class of children into deepest rural Hertfordshire for a day’s work in the fields. Letters to the local paper would complain that their education was being interrupted. However, the best French essay I ever wrote was on “Le ramassage des pommes de terres”. Our French teacher stopped me in the corridor to say: “Your essay was veeery good. Have you had ’elp?” (His haitches were never very good.)Margaret BakerWelwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire• Sorry to read that EU workers are deserting us as a result of Brexit. But there may be another source of supply. During the 1940s a lorry would arrive at school in the morning to take a class of children into deepest rural Hertfordshire for a day’s work in the fields. Letters to the local paper would complain that their education was being interrupted. However, the best French essay I ever wrote was on “Le ramassage des pommes de terres”. Our French teacher stopped me in the corridor to say: “Your essay was veeery good. Have you had ’elp?” (His haitches were never very good.)Margaret BakerWelwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire
• British farmers are suffering because they can’t get enough migrant workers to pick their crops post Brexit. Why don’t people in the UK want to take employment harvesting crops in this country? Because farmers are not offering a living wage (Letters, 13 January). That’s why they employ migrant workers. • British farmers are suffering because they can’t get enough migrant workers to pick their crops post Brexit. Why don’t people in the UK want to take employment harvesting crops in this country? Because farmers are not offering a living wage (Letters, 13 January). That’s why they employ migrant workers.
If a country can’t work out how to pay its own people a living wage to grow food for their own nation, then food prices must rise. We have had decade after decade of false food prices, due to (1) subsidies to farmers to keep food prices low and (2) lack of interest in making the nation self-sufficient, because profit is more important.If a country can’t work out how to pay its own people a living wage to grow food for their own nation, then food prices must rise. We have had decade after decade of false food prices, due to (1) subsidies to farmers to keep food prices low and (2) lack of interest in making the nation self-sufficient, because profit is more important.
The concept that farming is like any other business is wrong. Farming is about maintaining the land in such a way as to support the animals and people who live upon it. Any excess can then be sold. Richard HigginsGood Gardeners International The concept that farming is like any other business is wrong. Farming is about maintaining the land in such a way as to support the animals and people who live upon it. Any excess can then be sold. Richard HigginsGood Gardeners International
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