Dairy farmers asked to engage with migrant labour survey

GEPP

3 August 2015

By Keri Constantatou

Dairy farmers are being asked to take part in a survey on their use of migrant workers to help make a focal point their crucial role in the workforce. The Royal Association for British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) survey takes five minutes to complete using this link:

RABDF have expressed concern over their dependency on migrant workers. “If the Central and Eastern Europeans went back to their native countries then dairy farming would be in dire straits as so many producers are now dependent on this migrant labour force,” said RABDF policy director, Tim Brigstocke.

Those concerns were heightened last month after the Government stated British business was ‘overly reliant’ on foreign employees and were therefore partly to blame for what it described as ‘deeply disappointing’ figures.

“We want to build on our 2014 survey, believed to be the first of its kind in the sector taking in 250 producers, and extend to 2,500 producers in order to bring further clarity to the situation and subsequently make some firm recommendations to solve the various issues surrounding migrant labour,” said Mr Brigstocke.

“Once again, we will also be sharing the findings with the Government which surprisingly does not collect any such data on migrant labour, and the sector at large, in particular agricultural colleges who quite clearly have a role to play in training migrants to overcome language difficulties.”

The above is not legal advice; it is intended to provide information of general interest about current legal issues.

Gepp & Sons have possibly the most experienced and established Rural Services Legal Team in the region. If you have any legal questions relating to farming and businesses in the rural community please contact Edward Worthy on either 01245 493939 or worthye@gepp.co.uk