The falling value of the Pound? Which Chancellor was it whose pigheaded hatred of the Euro caused him to ensure Britain didn't join when it had the chance?? Why, it was Gordon Brown!

Sorry but I've no sympathy for these farmers who make their profit out of cheap labour, paying just a pittance.

Oops I'm sorry didn't realise that this is a plea to allow unrestricted immigration from non EU countries into the UK, so gangmasters and cheapskate farmers/employers can profit from them.

Scrap the hedonistic gap year culture (sometimes thinly disguised as charity) and get pre-students and undergraduates into the fields picking and earning their next years fees. Student loans, if granted in extreme emergency should be repayable before the start of the next academic year.

I'm angry too that instead of being prepared to pay people a reasonable wage, producers are arrogant enough to let the crop go to waste, than accept a reduced profit. A profit they must be able to afford if they can let food rot rather than be picked and eaten.Huh!Oh no they just want to exploit a few more non-euro workers who dont realise how much it costs to live in this country.

Regarding today's article about the fruit losses looming his year because of a lack of casual labour - call me old fashioned and, if you like, call me an idealist - but why are we relying on immigration to fill this labour gap? We have so many unemployed people in this country who have never worked a day simply because they don't want to (I'm not saying that this is in all cases - far from it, but there are a large number who this does apply to, as we all know). What about all those people jamming up our prisons, who quite frankly could be earning some of their keep! Shouldn't we be looking at mobilising the above-mentioned people who, in my opinion would probably benefit from doing an honest day's productive work... both physically and mentally! Come on UK - let's get real and look at utilising what we have got instead of trying to cram even more bodies into an infrastructure that is already creaking! Can't we sort out our own back yard instead of relying on the desparation of people from countries where they are, in many cases, already exploited to "plump up" our labour because we can't get our own lazy lumps off their sofas and off their playstations?

Haven't we got 2 million people not in employment,training or education in this country? Why doesn't the indi take on the story from a more inspired angle "Labour's indulgent welfare state pays millions to stay idle while fruit rots."
And why focus on immigrants? Is the Indi pro unfettered immigration? Does it think the UK, a country of 60 million souls, is incapable of picking its own produce and if so why? Why should we rely of Poles desperate for a better life to bus it over here and pick our veg? How did we not starve 30 years ago when Poland was part of the Warsaw Pact? Am I the only one wondering why the government doesn't do more to force the loafers off their backsides?
If I was a coucil leader I'd write to every able bodied person on the dole for 6 months or more. I'd say, there is a mini bus waiting outside the benefit office. Get on it and pick fruit. If you don't show up you lose that days wages from your benefit. You'd probably find the Poles wouldn't be needed any more.

Mikadodo says

'We should never have allowed the EU to introduce policies that would disadvantage us. Countries are different - so why whoudl we all dance to the tune of centralised bureaucrats who don't live here!'

I think your EU-hatred clearly stands in the way of clarity of thought. The 'points based system' is not an EU policy, but a British one. As the UK is the only EU country that has refused to join Schengen, the UK immigration policy is totally separate and independent from the EU. This new government quango, the BIA, is the one in charge. I am absolutely thrilled to see that their Mail/Sun pleasing totalitarian-cum-eugenics style immigration policies are spectacularly backfiring. The UK and the BIA thought that they could have an unlimited supply of 'slave' labour from the new Eastern European EU members and now they are seeing the reality: A lot of Polish and other Eastern EU country workers are going back and I know that first hand. In any case, most of them are over qualified and prefer warehouse jobs, why should they want to do farming work for semi-slavery wages. Incidentally these wages are not imposed by the farmers; they are forced to pay such low wages to be able to make a pittance out of supplying the supermarket oligopoly. With regards to Rumanian and Bulgarian immigrants, the current bottom of the food chain in EU migration, they are all going to Italy and Spain, where there is agricultural work to employ them many times over. Why on earth would they come to a country that a) will pay them in a currency that is depreciating by the week, b) is culturally so different to their own countries, much closer to the Latin culture, well Rumania is a Latin country anyway… and c) which has such a poor quality of life and the cost of day to day essentials is sky high.

Entertaining that a newspaper which considers itself of the "left" sides with the low paying boss class. Heres what can happen. The farmers can pay more to harvest their strawberries. They can market them as local ( and thus more expensive, if needs be). Some of the millions of people in Scotland who dont have jobs can toil these fields, preferably without losing any benefits they have ( we should see these as training schemes). Result: More money for everybody except the upper-middle class readers of the Independent who have to fork out for dearer strawberries ( Or they can buy foreign). So it goes.

The other option is mechanization. That's how Apple's are harvested.

The Independent is perfectly right in denouncing this foolish form of protectionism.

- Many young students from Ukraine (a country with a per capita GDP that is 1/6 the UK's) who could have spent the summer earning 5-6 pounds/hour, visiting the UK, and learning English now will stay home earning 0 (zero) pounds/hour.

- British farmers will not be able to pick and sell their produce.

- British supermarket will buy fruit from abroad.

- British consumers will pay more for their fruit.

How is this a good deal?

Katrina is si right about the lack of apprenticeships.Many years ago in the 80s I returned from living some years in Africa with my family. My children had been educated in good private schools but lacked any British education qualifications. Concerned that my son had one measly O level to show I sat down and wrote a personal letter to the MDs of several very large companies in the area. I explained that although the lad had no qualifications he had, had a good rounded education, was intelligent and eager to learn. I said that it was not his fault only mine for taking him around the world. This at a time when there was no apprenticeships to be had. The result was my lad got three offers from leading companies and he chose the one he wanted. He completed it got his HNC and went on to make a very successful career. I daresay had I not done this he would've joined the ranks of the umployable.

What I wanted to say has already been said- get the unemployed off their a**ses and into work. There are plenty of them, but the problem is here people/youngsters do not want to work and they receive free money and life is too easy for them. This type of work is also 'below' British people. Nice to see lots of foreigners realising just HOW crap it is to live here in the UK though (and the racism they suffer), and are going back home. The pittance they get for working here is disgraceful!! I don't mean that in a racist/xenophobic way- my wife is South American- it's just good that they are not being exploited by our bosses here anymore. I was speaking to a Frenchman in February about this situation and he told me that he tells the immigrants in France not to come to Britain. 'No', the immigrants say, 'all of my friends are in the UK, all working', and the Frenchman replies: 'Yes, but they are all working for nothing, and for long hours. What kind of life is that?' Like all British people, working for nothing, long hours, being ripped- off in this expensive country with shoddy services and dirty places- and all Brits do is moan or move abroad. Enough said.

Come on - People in Britain need proper wages. I have lived and worked in central europe, where the minimun wage is about £1 an hour, but the cost of living is 20-25% of the UK. So, for an worker to come here and earn £6 and hour is like a British teenager going to eastern europe and earning 6 times the minimum wage - ie £30 per hour - for working in McDonalds!!!!! Or doing any crap job! I think if that were the situation a lot of Brits would go to Poland, especially is Polish were the international language. As it is, we all suffer due to the present situation. We need an organised scheme for foreigners to pick this fruit. But then immigratiuon to the UK has always been a great big mess and no-one even knows how many immigrants are here!

I do agree however that the British education system - which got rid of tertiary education and apprenticeships, and replaced it with the dreadful American comprehensive system, has meant that we do not have youngsters who are qualified in vocational subjects as in Germany any more. It is NOTHING to do with 'parity of esteem' and all the nonsense that gets spouted by PC leftie educationalists - it is because we got rid of selective education. In other mainland european countries THEY DIDN'T! We should reintroduce grammar schools, vocational schools, and middle schools - they have this system all over europe. And we can see the results on every building site in the UK.

I liked the idea of guest workers though - if we have immigrants to pick fruit how can we be sure they'll leave. THAT is one big problem here.

Why do we need workers from outside the country? What is wrong with British students or young people without jobs doing the picking? If they turn their noses at jobs like these, they should have their benefits stopped. End of story. My son who went on to obtain a First Class Honours degree at Oxford, during his holidays did spells as a kitchen porter in a restaurant near our home. The owners told him he was the only English boy who had ever applied for the job; and the foreigners who did rarely lasted more than two weeks. It was not a glamorous job; very hot in the Summer and terribly unsociable hours, but it taught him a lot lessons; not least how to treat employees when he gets to the top.

As a partner in a very modest sized fruit farm/PYO, I'd like to add a few comments.It really isn't possible to pay much more than the modest wages agreed by the Agricultural Wages Board for non-skilled jobs such as fruit picking, and still make a profit.Consumers have been paying too little for their food for too long, and the percentage of salary spent on food has declined steadily over the last 30 years.Horticulture has not traditionally recieved the EU subsidies that other farmers have recieved, and consequently has become highly efficient, but now has no room to manoeuvre on wages etc. Most of the larger fruit growers have only been able to expand because of the availability of foreign labour. In my area, it is almost impossible to find local people who want seasonal farm work. If people were prepared to pay more for their food, growers could pay higher wages. But the truth is, that most people in a country with high employment levels are not going to choose to work outdoors in all weathers, at fairly monotonous work that requires high levels of concentration and strict attention to detail, when they could be indoors in the dry. I don't believe that most fruit growers are "greedy" - they are just trying to earn a living, the same as everyone else, and to balance the books. If more of them decide to grow cereals and other more profitable crops, this country will have to import much more fruit from abroad.Finally, regarding the comment suggesting prisoners be employed to harvest the fruit, I wonder if the writer thinks this would be good idea in other areas where employees are needed - the banking profession springs to mind, or perhaps home security installation -I'm sure there would be many highly skilled candidates, more qualified for this type of work than for fruit picking .

Dunno what all the fuss is about!
The Strawberries one buys in the shops are hard, sour and tasteless!
For the past couple of years I've been growing my own in a few large pots! They are they sweet, melt in your mouth and full of yummy flavour! So, O.K, I don't get them all year round, but what a treat when they are here!!
Don't forget, farmers only plant strawberrie plants that are hardy, resist pests etc, etc, they may look good in their fancy punnets, but they taste like hard, sour bullets!

REGARDS TO ALL,

GERONIMO

This is normal. British people have complained too much that there are too many immigrants in UK. Yes they were many but they did and some still do all the jobs the British don't do : farming, retail, hotels, care. When these people are gone what will happen then ? Will the Brits do these jobs ? No, because they'd rather stay at home on "Labour" benefits instead of working for small wages. The reality is that you can't have it both ways. You can't have immigrants only when it suits you and they you welcome them to go home. You want this situation resolved ? Then you stop the benefits for all who don't deserve them (which is the majority) and send those people to work. If one is dumb enough to leave school at 16, with no qualifications and unable to read or write then one does not deserve anything better. Simple as that. Work for once you lazy bastards and stop complaining about hard working immigrants.