Kent farmer’s business faces uncertainty after Brexit vote

A Kent farmer’s business faces an uncertain future if the UK government cannot guarantee access to migrant labour when Britain leaves the European Union.

Alastair Brooks, the owner of Langdon Manor Farm in Faversham, said that his business completely relies on people coming in from abroad.

The farm employs 160 seasonal workers, who are predominantly from Central European countries such as Romania and Bulgaria.

“I think the disappointing view of the whole debate is that it seems to imply that foreign workers are somehow an evil in the UK and they really aren’t.

“They have done a tremendous amount of good for the economy over the last few decades,” Mr Brooks said.

He added that a “meaningful restriction” on their ability to recruit seasonal summer staff could stop his business.

“We consistently tried UK people to work on farms but it doesn’t really suit them,” he said.

Although they are “canvasing hard” to make sure they have access to seasonal workforce, some horticultural businesses are also planning to move abroad.

“That is the danger, if you starve an industry of work they will go to where the workers are,” added Mr Brooks.

The National Farmers Union said that access to labour is a key post-Brexit policy priority for the organisation.

Ali Capper, chairman for the NFU’s national horticulture board said that, “if there aren’t enough people to pick the crops when harvest is underway, valuable food crops could be left to rot in the fields.”

Another concern for farmers is that the falling value in the pound means that workers might choose to go to other countries to work.

“The pound is less and it’s not okay for me,” said Christina, who has been working on the farm since April.

She is going back to Romania, her home country, in two weeks but plans to return to the UK in January – for the last time.

Although Britain is still a member of the European Union, we have already seen some of the effects of the vote, and Mr Brooks thinks that it is likely that the country is going to go into a recession.

He said: “I don’t think people when they voted to leave realised the enormity and the complexity of actually taking ourselves out of an organisation we have been a member of 40 years and I think it will affect us in ways we haven’t even thought about.”