An asparagus farmer whose produce looks set to be served at Saturday’s royal wedding has warned he faces going bust because of Brexit.
Kensington Palace dropped a heavy hint that the 600 guests will be offered asparagus from Andy Allen’s Norfolk farm when it published pictures of his fronds being prepared by the royal kitchens.
Royal protocol prevents Allen from confirming his Portwood Asparagus farm has been chosen but he said: “We are certainly in the frame and I do know there will be a story to tell on Monday.”
Supplying the royal kitchens provides a huge boost to Allen’s business but he warns it will not help him plug the gap in migrant workers he needs to stay afloat after the the UK leaves the European Union.
Speaking to the Guardian, he said: “This is the best PR I could ever have had to be able to supply the royal kitchens and yet will I be able to continue to supply them? It is a huge privilege to be chosen, but it doesn’t help because who is going to pick the bloody stuff?“We are completely reliant on seasonal migrant workers. If we can’t get that labour I’ll have to pack up. There is not the technology to pick asparagus with robots.”
Allen’s fears highlight the plight of many fruit and vegetable growers who rely on the EU’s free movement rules to find cheap labour for seasonal jobs shunned by British workers.
Allen employs almost 120 EU citizens, predominantly from Romania and Bulgaria. He said he was already struggling to recruit workers and fears the supply will dry up completely after Brexit.
Relatively high employment around Allen’s farm near Attleborough means he cannot attract local people to work at the minimum wage for the three months of the asparagus season.
“There’s a large poultry industry in Attleborough so that sucks up any excess labour. People want jobs all year round and we just require them for three months.”
Allen has lobbied the government for a solution but he has been unimpressed so far by the response: “I have had meetings with ministers which indicate they are floundering. They don’t blinking well know what to do. And we are all hanging on by our fingernails waiting for a decision on this. We don’t care if it comes from the rest of the world or the EU, we just need a supply of labour.”
He added: “I know I sound like a whingeing farmer making too much of this, but this is reality and politicians really haven’t got a handle on it.”
Allen is so concerned about finding workers next year that he has restricted planting on a crop that takes three years to grow. He also regrets some of his recent planting. “If I knew we were going to vote for Brexit and the whole thing was going to into uncertainty would I have done this? No.“I’m certain that from now on there are going to be big shortages – because migrant workers are looking at Britain and thinking what’s going to happen and going to mainland Europe instead.”
Allen’s workers are sourced by the migrant labour charity Concordia, which supplies about 10,000 mostly EU workers to 200 farms. Its chief executive, Stephanie Maurel, said interest in working in the UK has already “dropped off dramatically” because of the uncertainty about Brexit and the decrease in the value of the pound. One of her farm customers has already gone out of business.
She proposed to pilot a seasonal workers scheme involving students from Ukraine. It was rejected earlier this month by the Home Office.
She said: “We are caught up in a political wave, I call it the Daily Mail effect, of public opinion against immigration. The public voted to not have enough workers to pick fruit and veg in this country. They haven’t made the connection that 95% to 100% of British asparagus is picked by an eastern European.
“It is so sad: we have people who are keen to come; farmers who are desperate to have people pick their crops, and we just can’t bridge that gap and it is going to costs thousands in livelihoods.”
