Do strawberries rot without migrants?

The quotas on migrant workers entering Britain from Bulgaria and Romania could be lifted by the end of the year. Home Office ministers are to consider relaxing, or abandoning quotas set up when the two countries joined the EU in January.

A new Migration Impact Forum will examine the numbers who have entered the UK from the two countries since January, where they are working and whether industry wants more low-skilled workers.

There is a belief that regional skills shortages should be drawn up in a list and migrant workers encouraged to travel to these areas. In the first three months of 2007, almost 8000 Bulgarians and Romanians came to work in Britain, and another 2400 joined the seasonal agricultural workers scheme.

The National Farmers Union has placed ministers under pressure, as they say that more migrants should be allowed to become pickers. There has been a decrease in the number of other eastern Europeans who want to work in the sector. Recently it was claimed that the strawberry harvest would go rotten as there were not enough eastern Europeans to pick them. But who did the picking before the eastern Europeans? The strawberry harvests were never left to go rotten before 2004 so someone must have been picking them!

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