A farming boss says his company had spent £40,000 to fly 150 experienced Romanian farm workers to the UK to teach unskilled British fruit and vegetable pickers how to harvest. Anthony Gardiner, boss at G’s Growers, says the situation was getting desperate because their regular land army of foreign workers are locked down in their … Read more
The first plane carrying 150 ‘critically important’ Romanian fruit and vegetable pickers landed at Stansted this afternoon. The young Romanians, a mix of men and women and all wearing face masks, filed out of the near empty airport in groups of five to comply with social distancing. They were then transported by buses to a … Read more
Charter plane full of Romanian fruit pickers will land at Stansted tomorrow to fill farm labourer vacancies – despite coronavirus causing surge in UK unemployment Boeing 737 charter plane is arriving tomorrow with about 180 Romanian workers It is believed that not enough British workers have applied for farming jobs The charter plane is the … Read more
A neighbourhood in north west England is managing to get through the coronavirus crisis thanks to the kind heart and clever planning of a young family doing their bit to supply the vulnerable. Three young boys and their parents have helped more than 50 isolated and vulnerable neighbours needing food or a friend during the … Read more
This is the final instalment in our essential series on growing your own produce. We’ve already covered vegetables, herbs and soft fruit, and today we turn to ‘top’ fruit. For hundreds of years an orchard was the most desirable part of any garden. Fruit was a great luxury because for almost everyone it was only … Read more
Ocado chairman and former M&S boss Lord Rose has called for a national effort to mobilise tens of thousands of British workers to prevent seasonal fruit and vegetables rotting in the fields. Rose called on young people and university students to volunteer their services and be ready to start later this month when the first … Read more
Princess Eugenie delivers boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables to NHS ‘heroes’ at Hammersmith Hospital to thank them for ‘everything they do’ Princess Eugenie, 29, has delivered fresh fruit and vegetables to NHS workers Took to Instagram account to share series of snaps showing the care packages Also thanked those on the front line and … Read more
Consuming fruit juices is just as bad for your health and likely to lead to an early death as drinking cola or lemonade, research suggests. A new study found an increased risk of dying early from any cause for people who consumed a lot of sugary drinks. US researchers compared, for the first time, 100 … Read more
The strawberry blossom has just started to appear on Christine Snell’s farm, turning her corner of Herefordshire into a riot of colour and heralding the arrival of spring. In exactly six weeks, the endless sea of yellow and white flowers will have been replaced by hundreds of thousands of berries, each turning slowly red in … Read more
A Cabinet minister today called for British workers to ‘mobilise’ to help pick fruit and vegetables on British farms over the summer amid fears that a shortage of seasonal workers could bump up food prices. Environment Secretary George Eustice said that he was already talking to farmers about filling a ‘gap’ in the European temporary … Read more