The Arla cooperative says five in six farmers receive very few or zero applications for job vacancies
Dairy farmers have warned that a long-running shortage of workers, exacerbated by Brexit and the pandemic, has put the UK’s food security under pressure.
Five in six farmers who have looked for workers said they have received very few or zero applications from qualified people for their job vacancies, according to a survey of dairy producers by Arla, the UK’s largest dairy cooperative and the owner of the Lurpak and Cravendale brands.
The fifth annual poll of Arla’s 1,900 British dairy farmers has highlighted the worsening struggle to find workers with the right skills and experience, with 79% of farmers highlighting this problem in 2021, rising to 84% this year.
The difficulties in hiring staff had grown worse since Brexit and the pandemic, milk producers reported, as the combination of the end of free movement for EU workers and other economic factors since Covid have made it harder to find suitable staff, while there has been a similar story across the whole of the agricultural sector.
