Millions of British Christmas dinners are to be saved by turkeys imported from Poland and France after UK farmers were forced to slash production because of fears of labour shortages.
UK supermarkets and restaurants will have to import hundreds of thousands of the birds from the EU for Christmas after British farmers reared at least 1m fewer birds, the poultry industry has warned.
Richard Griffiths, chief executive of the British Poultry Council, said big turkey producers belonging to the group had slashed production by about a fifth this year after Brexit cut off their supply of cheap labour. These producers normally rear about 5.5m of 8m to 9m turkeys consumed at Christmas annually, he said.
Imported turkeys would likely come from Poland and France, said Paul Kelly of the KellyBronze free range turkey farm in Essex. “The supermarkets have supported British turkey over the past 15 years and we have been able to supply 100 per cent [of the demand],” said Kelly. “Now we will be forced into buying turkeys from the EU.”
The warning came as the government reversed its policy of limiting 5,500 emergency work visas for the poultry industry to the turkey sector in an attempt to “save Christmas”. The visas, announced last weekend, would be available to any poultry workers, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Friday.
The visas were announced after poultry producers, which previously relied on labour from eastern Europe, warned of threats to Christmas and potential overcrowding on chicken farms because of a lack of workers.
The industry is pushing for ministers to fast-track issuing the visas, which will expire at the end of the year.
“We can’t start applying for the visas until mid-October and if it takes three to four weeks before they come through, it’s mid November at the earliest, and that’s too late,” said Griffiths. “That’s even if the labour is out there and waiting to come to the UK.”
George Eustice, environment secretary, said last week: “We have listened to concerns from the sector and we are acting to alleviate what is a very tight labour market.” But in a briefing to industry on Friday the government said it would not extend or repeat the scheme.
“These measures are specific, time-limited and one off. This scheme is not a medium or long-term solution for labour supply issues and they will not be replicated in future years,” Defra said in a presentation.
Recruiters had hoped to reassign workers already in the UK under the six-month seasonal workers’ pilot scheme aimed at fruit and vegetable pickers, but have been told this will not be allowed, Griffiths said.
Kelly said he had managed to recruit 62 of the 100 workers who normally pluck and process his farm’s 35,000 Christmas birds. As a smaller farmer, he worked to secure settled status for people who carried out seasonal work in previous years at KellyBronze. “For the wider industry, relying on agencies to fill the gaps, it is very tight,” he said.
A supermarket executive did not rule out importing birds but rejected “scaremongering” about overall supply levels, adding that frozen birds were likely to account for a larger proportion of sales this year.
Kelly said households were ordering turkeys months ahead of time. “Sales are 230 per cent up on last year, which was 150 per cent up on the year before. Everyone is ordering their turkey earlier,” he said.
The warning on turkeys came as the pig sector said it was on the verge of an “acute welfare disaster” caused by a shortage of butchers that has created a backlog of 120,000 pigs on farms.
Rob Mutimer, chair of the National Pig Association, said conditions had grown “considerably worse” in the past three weeks and that a mass cull of pigs, involving animals being shot and incinerated or rendered, could be needed within weeks.
“We are all pushing our ability to keep pigs to the absolute maximum. No one wants to see a cull. It was horrible during foot-and-mouth,” he said, referring to the disease outbreak in 2001.
The British Meat Processors Association said production of Christmas products such as “pigs in blankets” could be cut by one-third. The UK consumes 40m packets of the bacon-wrapped sausages every year.
“We should have started laying down pigs in blankets and netting gammons in July for party food for Christmas . . . we are just way behind,” said Nick Allen, BMPA chief executive.
The food and drink sector, which employs over 4m people from farm to fork, estimated last month that it now has over 500,000 vacancies, a situation exacerbated by Brexit and EU workers returning home in the pandemic. Food industry groups called for a one-year “Covid-19 recovery visa” to help.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiP2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50L2IxOTI0ODU2LTg1NDctNDEyNi1hZjJjLWFlNzJlNDkyMDQxMdIBP2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50L2IxOTI0ODU2LTg1NDctNDEyNi1hZjJjLWFlNzJlNDkyMDQxMQ?oc=5
2021-10-01 17:35:02Z
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