Germany drafts Romanian Farm Labor for Coronavirus Pandemic Harvest
Romania is allowing citizens to leave for seasonal harvesting work despite restrictions on travel during the coronavirus pandemic. That is good news for German farmers, but what does it mean for the workers themselves?
German farmers say they need about 300,000 seasonal workers for the 2020 harvest. But, in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Germany's government had until recently banned foreign harvesters — like most other foreigners — from entering the country. Farmers tried to fill the labor shortage by employing people already in Germany. The BMR association of machinery rings and the Food and Agriculture Ministry joined forces to create an online platform for farmers to quickly advertise jobs.
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Romanian fruit pickers flown to UK amid crisis in farming sector
Charter flights organised after appeal fails to recruit enough British workers.
Romanian workers are being flown in to help feed Britain amid a continuing recruitment crisis in the agriculture sector.
Special charter flights have started flying into the UK from Bucharest with desperately needed workers for British farms that risk losing their crop of early summer fruit and vegetables because of the coronavirus lockdown.
One plane was due to land in Stansted airport on Wednesday afternoon, with another landing on Thursday with 150 people onboard.
Matthew Purton, the head of commercial aviation at Air Charter Services, said the company had tendered for six more flights “for a mixture of farms” in the coming weeks, which could see 450 workers flown to help avert food shortages.
Romania lifted restrictions to allow farm workers fly to overseas, and ACS started flying workers into Germany three weeks ago, with eight flights so far and more on the way.
Purton said Romania had put in place procedures to reduce the risk of coronavirus contagion.
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