With the help of the government's new seasonal labour scheme, organic vegetable grower James Foskett has managed to pull together a 105-strong team to bring in this year's harvest.
They are hard at work on his carrot, radish, beetroot and potato crops - which are looking good. In the aftermath of Brexit, labour has been a big headache for large-scale growers like James - and it's a relief to find the workforce so that the vegetables aren't left to rot in the fields.
The problem is that the exercise overall is costing the Woodbridge farmer a fortune - and while cereal prices have soared in the wake of the war in Ukraine, demand for vegetables like potatoes and carrots isn't where it might be - which is having a knock-on effect on his profits. Meanwhile his input and wage costs have gone through the roof.
James farms 3500 acres of land in the Deben Valley. Under the new government scheme to address what was an acute shortage of labour in the food and farming sector, his seasonal workers - who are coming from countries including Moldova, Bulgaria, Romanians and Uzbekistan - are costing £10.10 an hour, compared to the national minimum wage of £9.50. He has to stump a further £360 each for visa and other costs to pay for their maximum six month stay. He has also bumped up the wage of his permanent workforce to keep pace.
To replenish his workforce during the Christmas season he'll need to repeat this new visa process and eat the added costs. The money goes to Pro-Force, one of the seasonal labour recruitment companies tasked by the government with gathering a seasonal farm workforce in the post-Brexit world. At the same time, supermarkets are competing with each other to offer the lowest vegetable prices they can.
"To be fair, we have got a full complement. We have got 105 people at the moment - which is great - but they are costing us a fortune. We have got that, we have got the fertiliser increase. All our regular tractor drivers have got a pay increase as we do every year.
"But fuel is absolutely crippling at the moment. You can imagine - a big tractor uses 50 to 60 litres an hour," says James, who also grows a range of other crops - including such as onions, sugar beet, maize, vining peas, sweetcorn, green beans and cereals. "It costs £75 an hour to run a big tractor. We are having to cope with all these things."
Overall, he estimates his costs have gone up 20 to 25% across the board.
"But we are not getting that back from the retailer - they are being really hard-nosed," he adds.
"We have got a bit of inflation on the potatoes when we put our potato contracts out last November but since then inflation has gone up another 10%."
And it's a fast-changing market. It used to be at one time that the public would look forward to getting their first fresh new potatoes of the season and they would be in great demand. "And they taste great," adds James.
These days carrots and potatoes are sold cheaply, he believes. Jersey - an early potato producer - would usually have cleared its crops by now but hasn't and there are also still quite a few spuds still in storage from last year. "It's a bit bizarre," he admits.
A relatively early spring has meant this year's vegetable crops have matured earlier than last year and he began harvesting at the end of May.
"Things are pretty dry and we are pretty flat out on irrigation but in general crops are looking pretty good," he says.
"We have not sat back on fertiliser on wheat because of where the price is - it's cost-effective."
On the organic side, he is using chicken muck and digestate to fertilise the soil. Just 3% of the country's food is organic. It is a growing market but demand is not high at the moment, he says. "It's just eased off a bit," he explains. This could be down to a bit of consumer belt-tightening because of inflation - but food spend her head of population is still low and those who buy organic tend to have deeper pockets.
However, overall, the situation for the relatively few vegetable growers there are in UK is challenging and the costs are becoming more untenable, he admits.
"It's pretty difficult out there at the moment. If you look at the vegetable sector there's a huge amount of investment in machinery etc," he says.
"If we are not careful people will pack it in. It's barely profitable. I'm not just bleating. We just need a fair return for what we do. While the multiples are fighting each other to keep customers coming in that doesn't help us."
Last season, James had to plough some of his carrots back in because he couldn't sell them around Christmas time and January. "There was a good crop out there and there were just too many," he says. Hopefully, he will have better luck this season, but the numbers still aren't stacking up.
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