Growers 'will be unprofitable in three years'

Britain's fruit and vegetable growers are facing 'devastation', with many staring down the barrel of unprofitability thanks to the National Living Wage (NLW), NFU president Meurig Raymond has claimed.

Raymond, speaking at the union's national conference in Birmingham, said that NLW may be an 'admirable principle', but it has been introduced 'without clear explanation and by politicians who have no understanding of how it's going to devastate Britain's fruit and vegetable growers, leaving many unprofitable in as little as three years'.

Raymond, addressing Defra secretary of state Liz Truss directly, said the NFU has a list of ways in which the government could help reduce the impact on growers.

Horticulture board vice chair Ali Capper said these included an exemption on National Insurance for seasonal workers, the introduction of a workers' scheme open to students from all over the world, an increase in the accommodation offset and an end to pension auto-enrollment for seasonal workers.

Elsewhere in his speech, Raymond turned the crosshairs on supermarkets, criticising the 'vicious' price war and the 'ridiculously low prices' for vegetables over Christmas. He also called on the government to extend the Groceries Supply Code of Practice (GSCoP) across the supply chain.

The adjudicator's powers should be extended to oversee other voluntary codes, such as those on dairy contracts and red meat specification, he proposed.

'Too often changes are made to supply contracts at short notice,' he said. 'It is scandalous that farmers are so often the last to know - and the first to pay - when this happens.

'At the last election we asked for the powers of the adjudicator to be extended, and all the main parties agreed. Now, secretary of state, it is the time for the government to deliver.'

Raymond's wish list for the future included profitability, a properly functioning supply chain and more exports, all to be enshrined within the government's forthcoming 25-year Food and Farming Plan.

For further coverage of the NFU horticulture debate, see FPJ Friday 26 February 2016.