The government is tackling labour shortages in the food supply chain, funding technology to reduce the reliance on migrant labour and providing certainty and clarity for farms and other food businesses across the UK.
In its response to John Shropshire's Independent Review into Labour Shortages in the Food Supply Chain, the government will implement a series of new measures to support the industry. These include:
- extending the seasonal worker visa route for five years until 2029 to give businesses time to plan effectively;
- up to £50 million of further funding for new technology to support fully automated packhouses and more support to follow to bring robotic crop pickers on a par with human pickers in three to five years;
- creating a comprehensive strategy to enhance skills provision and attract domestic workers.
Recognising the need for farmers and growers to have time to invest in automation and move away from a reliance on migrant labour, the seasonal worker visa route has been extended for five years from 2025 to 2029 to address this immediate need. 43,000 visas will be available to the horticulture sector in 2025, with another 2,000 visas for poultry. Further detail of the number of visas available for 2026 to 2029 will be set out later this year.
The government has ramped up its support for the use of automation in the sector to reduce the reliance on migrant workers whilst introducing measures to promote British workers into agriculture.
This will start with immediate work to fully automate a group of major packhouses in 12 to 18 months, which will improve understanding of the government support needed to make fully automated packhouses universally viable. Information learned from this will help inform our planned £50 million package of packhouse automation funding, with
