Investing in technology to address labour shortages in UK fresh produce and horticulture: How does this redefine standards of good agricultural practice

Abstract

The global agri-food sector is becoming more fragile as a result of supply chain shocks like COVID-19, Brexit and conflict, which is posing a growing challenge to the horticultural industry. As a result, it is becoming clearer how crucial seasonal agricultural migrant workers are to ensuring food security. Delivering GAP requires taking into account the effects of COVID-19 and Brexit on the UK’s fresh produce and horticulture sectors as well as the potential for increased demand for automation and Agriculture 4.0. In the medium and long run, the market conditions may favourably accelerate automation and the adoption of Agriculture 4.0 as a workable solution to the workforce shortage. The greatest opportunities for automation and the application of new technology will be found in the transport, harvest, and post-harvest processes. Investment in automation and technology adoption depends on access to finance, appropriate training and upskilling, and other stakeholders’ support (e.g. by retailers). We conclude that understanding the need for automation, embracing Agriculture 4.0, utilising labour schemes, and envisioning how work and farming will change in the future is critical when examining GAP in the context of an integrated approach within the fresh produce and horticulture sectors.

Keywords

GAP seasonal labour horticulture and fresh produce sector policy automation Agriculture 4.0

Introduction

The agricultural and food sector is essential to the global economy. The sector has been experiencing increasing pressures from a rapidly growing and ageing population, from climate change and political pressures affecting migration and urbanisation (Duckett et al., 2018). As national economies become more developed, the importance of the agricultural sector as a proportion of national gross domestic product (GDP) has gradually been declining. The farm-based workforce in developed countries such as the United Kingdom (UK) is becoming older and fewer people are interested in working in agriculture, and fresh produce and horticulture particularly, so the harvest and processing labour supply has often stemmed from migrant pools of workers who historically met any shortages (Christiaensen et al., 2020; Mitaritonna and Ragot, 2020; Mitchell et al., 2020; Pelham, 2020). Indeed, more than two-thirds of migrant workers are concentrated in developed countries (International Labour Office, 2021).

Agricultural migrant workers primarily undertake labour-intensive tasks, such as harvesting, packing and processing, for example, fruit and vegetable production, food processing and marketing activities (Christiaensen et al., 2020; International Labour Office, 2021; Ridley and Devadoss, 2021). As firms have sought a more flexible ‘gig’ labour supply, the work has become increasingly contingent and ‘other’, making it less attractive to potential workers (Nye, 2020). However, the source of migrant labour has tightened due to socio-economic uncertainty, and the political direction in the UK, as in many countries, has become less supportive of immigration (Christiaensen et al., 2020; Mitaritonna and Ragot, 2020). The shortage of farmworkers was a significant issue before the shocks of COVID-19 and Brexit occurred almost simultaneously (Garnett et al., 2020; McCann et al., 2021; Mitchell, 2020; Pitt, 2021; Richards and Rickard, 2020); with the impact of quarantine measures, and across the world the loss of workforce from COVID-19 illness and deaths (Mitchell et al., 2020; Pelham, 2020). These socio-economic shocks have made the farm labour crisis more acute. Coping without experienced migrant seasonal labour poses three difficulties: firstly, the unavailability of appropriate farmworkers and retention of migrant workers that are skilled in various farm work (Milbourne and Coulson, 2021; Pitt, 2021); and secondly, the potential increased cost of production through engaging less-skilled/new workers and embedding the cost of training and supervision (Mitaritonna and Ragot, 2020; Pitt, 2021). Finally, the fresh produce and horticulture sectors will need to compete with other industrial sectors to recruit new workers and also to retain existing workers (Nye and Lobley, 2021; Pelham, 2020).

This paper is guided by the following research questions: (i) what was the impact of COVID-19 and Brexit on 2020 labour availability in the fresh produce and horticulture sector? (ii) what responses could address the labour shortages, that is, how is good agricultural practice (GAP) reimagined by growers and can the socio-economic conditions be a catalyst for increased technological advancement and innovation? and (iii) how will this change sector norms and standards into the future.

UK fresh produce and horticultural sector

In the UK, as in other developed countries, the extent of reliance on seasonal migrant labour is hard to quantify but is most pronounced in the horticulture and fresh produce sector (Office for National Statistics, 2018). Two salient developments in the UK in the 2010s made the horticultural labour supply more fragile by reducing the diversity of the labour source and increasing its cost. Firstly, the Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ scheme (SAWS) immigration programme was closed in 2013 as part of a transition to employ workers from the European Union (EU), predominantly Bulgarian and Romanian nationals (Davies, 2014). It was reopened on a ‘pilot’ basis in 2019, but on a smaller scale (Home Office/Defra, 2019). Secondly, introducing a ‘national living wage’ in 2016 drove substantial wage inflation in the sector and as a result increased growing costs. This is because labour costs represent a significant proportion of production costs; and one estimate anticipated that horticultural producers’ labour costs would increase by 35% in 2020 (Pelham, 2020).

A response to labour shortages exacerbated by COVID-19 lockdown protocols around Europe and to wage inflation was for growers to turning to local labour to meet the shortage in seasonal foreign workers. This was termed the ‘Pick for Britain’ strategy adopted by the UK government. This had very limited impact on labour shortages in fresh produce and horticulture. By late 2020, the ‘Pick for Britain’ effort to stimulate UK domestic workers’ contributions to the seasonal labour supply was widely criticised in the press (Russell, 2020; Towler, 2020). Despite varying assessments of the scheme’s design and performance (O’Carroll, 2020), and apparent attempts to adapt to changing circumstances by considering ways to encourage students and furloughed workers to get involved (Forrester, 2020), there were difficulties matching domestic supply to demand given the ‘way the job has transformed over the last 30 years’ (O’Connor, 2021). Apparently, in recognition of the failure of the scheme and the need to strengthen the other primary short-term labour supply measures as a result, the Government announced a further tripling of the SAWS quota to 30,000 in December (Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland/Defra, 2020).

An alternative strategic approach to substitute for lower migrant labour is to invest in physical capital, mechanisation, automation, technology, digitalisation, Internet of things (IoT), robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), and in so doing reduce labour requirements and drive an increase in the scale of production (Mitaritonna and Ragot, 2020; Pelham, 2020). Thus, the second strategy encouraged by the UK government was the allocation of £90 million to a ‘food production transformation’ programme, aimed at exploiting AI, robotics and satellite data to innovate in the agri-food industry; and a £40 million grant to encourage farmers to invest in new technologies, such as robotics. The development of the technology from initial ideation to prototypes to scalable solutions requires large public investments, so solutions are not yet operationalised to replace human harvesters/workers on any economically viable scale (Mitaritonna and Ragot, 2020; Yang, 2021).

Recent studies have highlighted the impact of COVID-19 globally, nationally, and at local levels on labour needs. These studies have looked at different types of impact (e.g. access to inputs, labour in production, transportation and consumption) and the potential to adopt technological innovations as a response (Aday and Aday, 2020; Bochtis et al., 2020; Garnett et al., 2020; Richardson et al., 2021; Ridley and Devadoss, 2021; Sanderson Bellamy et al., 2021; Weersink et al., 2021). Fresh produce and horticultural producers’ chosen solutions to these labour challenges are diverse, but in the short term, their focus rests on addressing the labour gap and ensuring a sufficient supply of skilled staff. Automation then becomes the primary long-term solution, but more strategic decision making is needed before most farms fully automate, where they can. Specific activities in fresh produce and horticulture are ripe for automation, such as transport and material handling, and similarly for cultivation tasks, such as harvesting and packing. Nevertheless, automation will need to be economically and financially viable to address the labour challenges that confront the UK fresh produce and horticultural sector. The next section of the paper considers the influence of supply chain shocks in accelerating automation and the adoption of technology in the UK.

Adoption of technology in the UK

In the face of a growing need to ensure that vulnerabilities in the food supply do not jeopardise food security and that food production is more environmentally sustainable and socially just, the COVID-19 and Brexit shocks have exposed the vulnerability of the UK’s agri-food system, and it has been tested with regard to its resilience to future disruptions, raising questions about the system’s agility and capacity for change (Garnett et al., 2020; Mitchell et al., 2020; Nye, 2020; Sanderson Bellamy et al., 2021). These circumstances have focused attention on the agri-food sector’s capacity to pivot and innovate in response to shrinking agricultural labour supply (Bochtis et al., 2020; Mitchell et al., 2020; Sanderson Bellamy et al., 2021). Thus, the market situation has highlighted the fundamental role of migrant seasonal workers (Mitaritonna and Ragot, 2020) and has left the industry exposed to significant recruitment challenges and highlighted several structural weaknesses within the UK’s food system (Davies, 2014; Defra, 2019; Ranta and Mulrooney, 2021).

The key policy focus for the industry in the longer term is technology, supported by rapid investments in research and development as well as plans for more systematic exploitation of the apparent innovation stimulus driven by the labour shortage (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, 2020a), for example, through the SmartHort support scheme which promoted techniques like lean and continuous improvement (AHDB, 2021). At the same time, some envisaged that Brexit and COVID-19 effects on supply chains (moving away from now fragile-seeming ‘just-in-time’ strategies to more secure local procurement models) might strengthen producers’ hands in the context of the long-recognised vulnerability to supermarket power (Holmes, 2020). To encourage companies and farm businesses, the UK government provided incentives to develop new products, processes and services, or enhance existing ones. The research and development (R&D) tax credits scheme allows companies to reduce their corporate tax bill or receive a tax refund based on a proportion of their R&D expenditure. The scheme can be used by any organisation liable for corporation tax in the UK and who meets the necessary R&D criteria (Devnani et al., 2019). Generally, this R&D focus may yield more optimal outcomes, that is, secure future food security and minimise the negative supply chain consequences of limited labour provision (Stephens et al., 2020). Additionally, it is not difficult to imagine a future in which automation expands and deepens to encompass more tasks on more farms, especially with the current trends in technological development and a diminishing farm labour supply (Acemoglu, 2010; Acemoglu and Autor, 2011; Rizov, 2020). There is an opportunity for the UK agri-food sector and technology providers (i.e. technologies underpinning the majority of the observed innovation, e.g. big data, AI, Internet of Things (IoT) and intelligent robotics) to accelerate the development and uptake of automation and robotic technologies within agri-businesses (see Acemoglu, 2010; Bochtis et al., 2020; Duong et al., 2020; Marinoudi et al., 2019; Nye and Lobley, 2021), especially through labour complementarity or substitution approaches (Mitaritonna and Ragot, 2020; Yang, 2021). Substitution approaches are designed to replace human activities solely by technological solutions whereas complementarity approaches replace some tasks which more readily lend themselves to technological solutions. With complementarity approaches, it is important to recognise that at current levels of technology advancement there are still some tasks where cost-effective human-technology parity cannot be achieved, or there is currently no technology available to replace the cognitive skills or dexterity skills of humans.

Businesses would be more likely to adopt new technologies if they can establish whether the technology is economically viable, and they can determine the potential efficiency gains. Investments in labour-saving technologies will enable farmers to produce more food with fewer workers but the capital investment required may disadvantage small farmers and potentially accelerate a concentration of crop production on fewer farms (Rizov, 2020; Yang, 2021). Technological innovation will shape good agricultural practices going forward and the future framing of work roles in fresh produce and horticulture. The research questions posed in this research are now considered in the next section.

Reflection

What was the impact of COVID-19 and Brexit on 2020 labour availability for fresh produce and horticultural businesses in the UK?

The 2020 shocks arrived quite differently and had different implications. Brexit was possible to anticipate, with the end of the transition period being the 31 December 2020. Its main labour related implications arose from uncertainties about the scale, pace and management of transition away from the EU as the main source of labour. In February 2020, the Government announced an intended new points-based immigration system (PBS). Fresh produce and horticultural industry groups considered what measures were available to them such as the SAWS quota for non-EU workers of 10,000 workers and the ‘Pick for Britain’ scheme inadequate, and a parliamentary inquiry was launched (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, 2020b). As the inquiry noted in December 2020, the key underlying uncertainty related to the labour need was the persistent divergence between official and industry estimates of the number of workers required (reportedly around 40,000 to 70,000, respectively) (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, 2020c). There were also differing assessments of what contributions the different sources of labour supply could make between EU, non-EU through SAWS and UK domestic labour. These challenges extended into 2021.

The COVID-19 epidemic, by contrast to Brexit, was an exogenous factor that arrived suddenly and operated more dynamically. Its implications also involved labour-related uncertainty, partly overlaying and compounding the aforementioned Brexit-related effects on availability and the source transition of labour. Throughout 2020, travel restrictions constrained the volume of seasonal labour, in particular, the SAWS supplies of non-EU workers because of visa office closures (National Farmers Union, 2020). Additionally, businesses needed to pay for various recruitment support, equipment, training, additional supervision, accommodation adjustments, transport changes, etc., to comply with workplace restrictions, adding a new layer of administrative costs over and above the burden of immigration scheme compliance. COVID-19 impacts also seem to have varied considerably according to business type, locality and individual circumstances. Overall, one industry report estimated COVID-19 employment cost rises to UK horticultural business were in the range of 6%–15% (Pelham, 2020). This amounted to strong circumstantial evidence that, taken together, Brexit and COVID-19 shocks to the horticultural seasonal labour supply could constitute something of a perfect storm. At the end of 2020, the key problem facing producers was fundamental shortage of labour.

Another repositioning that needed to occur in during COVID-19 restrictions was the need to comply with social distancing regulations which impacted on expected levels of productivity, logistics and distribution (Bulgari et al., 2021), and changes in personal protective equipment (PPE) use. However increased hygiene requirements, especially with regard to disinfection of contact surfaces, improved personal hygiene especially hand hygiene reinforced the standards and practices required for those workers handling ready to eat produce (Lacombe et al., 2021). COVID-19 and/or Brexit impacted affect growers’ expectations of future demand for UK crops. Eating habits also changed during lockdown and there was a reported increase in demand for fruit in supermarkets/retailers which impacted on the scarcity of labour.

What responses could address the labour shortage, that is, how can GAP be reimagined?

To address the labour shortage a key element to reconsider would be the architecture of the UK fresh produce and horticulture sector itself and its reliance on human labour (Relf-Eckstein et al., 2019; Nye and Lobley, 2021), Thus it could be argued that there are a number of intrinsic aspects of the UK horticultural sector that perpetuate the labour challenges:

• the cultural context, especially the ‘othering’ of many field based and packhouse based tasks;

• the technological context, specifically the farming technologies bundled up in the financial and cultural ability to innovate and the capacity and lead times with global equipment suppliers;

• the market context in terms of both partial integration and fragmentation, that is, market size and structure, and the number of organisations where the transition is needed;

• the innovation context and the willingness to adapt and engage with highly disruptive activities; and

• the policy context, and existing governance and regulatory structures (Relf-Eckstein et al., 2019; Milbourne and Coulson, 2021; Nye and Lobley, 2021).

To achieve a more sustainable industry level solution an integrated approach by the various actors would be needed to reimagine the architecture of the sectors. Specifically, there would need to be a better understanding of automation needs, that is, skill gaps, skill shortage and skill mismatches, (Cappelli, 2015; Pitt 2021), an exploration of the range of cost reduction strategies, that is, competitive pricing or leasing arrangements for the end users by developers for technological innovations (Nye and Lobley, 2021; Rose and Bhattacharya, 2023), support in terms of appropriate; infrastructure for the development and circulation of horticultural knowledge (Pitt, 2021); and financial support in the form of tax breaks or grants that can help growers to adopt new technologies, as long as prices do not increase in line with the support on offer (displacement effect) (Rose and Bhattacharya, 2022).

Primarily, at this stage of technology adoption the nature of the jobs, in terms of skills and task, that are vulnerable to these changes can be defined, but as technologies develop, for example, generative AI, the range of jobs and tasks that are vulnerable to substitution by technology will increase. A co-ordinated stakeholder approach in this context would provide a better understanding of the dynamic nature of innovation in horticultural agri-food chains and an exploration of technological innovations that are both labour saving, and job-creating ultimately delivering more output using the same ratio of inputs or capital (i.e. robots could partially replace workers or robots could work with workers and improve specialisation) (Nübler, 2016). The adoption of technology will also change the type of roles and tasks for people in horticultural businesses.

How will labour change impact on sector norms and standards into the future?

Some of these changes will have profound impact on the sector. For instance, there will be an increase in skill requirements within the jobs that are available (Cappelli, 2015). There will be a need to review policies, that is, immigration policy (Bochtis et al., 2020), whether the current guidelines and provisions favour the labour shortages, where there may be any compromises that are for a greater good or whether exploring other models would work best for the economy. There will be also needed to look into technologies assessment in terms of cost, complexities, policies, nature and needs (Nye and Lobley, 2021), and applying futures thinking in terms of the future of farms and farming in the UK to determine potential solutions (Marinoudi et al., 2019; Milbourne and Coulson, 2021; Nye and Lobley, 2021). In the event that uncertainties around the future of horticultural businesses with regards to labour and other wider issues are not addressed, this could cause contraction of the sector, that is, lacking sufficient labour would prompt farmers to scale back production and associated technological advancement provide significant level of uncertainty (Klerkx et al., 2010, 2012)

Concluding thoughts

The shortage of farmworkers in the UK, due to socio-economic factors such as COVID-19, political tensions and geo-political conflict has made the agri-food sector more fragile and sensitive to potential internal and external supply shocks. Consequently, the importance of seasonal agricultural migrant workers to deliver food security became increasingly evident. However, the challenges faced has made the sector rethink of potential ways of dealing with the labour shortage issues while maintaining good agricultural practices in the fresh produce and horticultural sector. This paper has been guided by the following research questions: (i) what was the impact of COVID-19 and Brexit on 2020 labour availability in the fresh produce and horticulture sector? (ii) what responses could address the labour shortages, that is, how is GAP reimagined by growers and can the socio-economic conditions be a catalyst for increased technological advancement and innovation? and (iii) how will this change sector norms and standards into the future.

Two key options are being considered firstly embedding technological advancement to reduce the need for manual labour, and secondly improving policies for labour availability for horticulture now and during the transition to greater automation and embedding of smart systems as part of Agriculture 4.0 as well as providing additional government support for addressing the challenges the sector faces. If these two options are not forthcoming then the industry may contract or offshore its activities impacting on national food provision.

A possible sector solution proposed is an integrated approach that includes mapping and gaining greater understanding of automation needs and the adoption of Agriculture 4.0 in the sector, optimising the use of labour schemes now, during transition and in a more digitally connected automated sector in the future, and reimagining the future of work and ways of farming. In this approach, stakeholders would look more closely into the architecture of the sector in order to evaluate the intended and unintended consequences on the interventions that may be taken. For instance, there is an opportunity to adopt labour-saving techniques and technologies such as robot and autonomous systems. However, there would need to be support systems for farmers to evaluate and possibly adopt these technologies, with associated skill, financial and knowledge support available or even further development of policies aligned to such innovations.

The solutions will need to be cost-effective and fit for purpose. The bottom line being that there will be a need to review the various options to ensure that the various stakeholders are not left worse off after transition. Investment in automation and technology adoption depends on access to finance, appropriate training and upskilling, and other stakeholders’ support (e.g. by retailers). The main opportunities for automation and technology adoption will be in transportation, harvest and post-harvest activities. As a viable solution for the shortage of labour supply, the market conditions could create a favourable environment to accelerate automation and adoption of Agriculture 4.0 in the mid-and long-term to ensure a viable agri-food sector.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Lilian Korir

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