A daffodil grower says he will be supplying a fraction of the normal number this year due to a shortage of pickers brought on by Brexit.
Kevin Haynes, horticulture manager at Taylors Bulbs in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, said normally they would have around 150 pickers harvesting flowers in the spring – but this year they have just 30.
He said that means the business will only be able to cut around a third of the 2.5 million daffodils they would typically do.
Mr Haynes blamed red tape and bureaucracy for the issue.
He said: “Because of Brexit we’re not allowed to bring in staff. There’s a shortage of flower pickers because of Brexit.
“We’re not allowed to bring people over for flowers and ornamental, it’s only for fruit and veg. Brexit has also created a lot of paperwork and problems for exports.”
He said that the company is not exporting daffodils this year and estimated that in previous years around a third of the firm’s cut daffodils went overseas.
Mr Haynes said that the 30 Romanian pickers working on the harvest live permanently in the UK and are contracted through an agency.
In previous years, other pickers would come in from Eastern Europe.
He said it had still been a “good year” despite the shortage of pickers as the firm’s focus is on the bulbs, which can be harvested by machines.
Hand-picked flowers, he said, were a “secondary thing” and the bulbs of those that are not picked can still be farmed.
The daffodil picking season lasts around eight to 10 weeks, from February to April and Mr Haynes said the pickers that are working on the harvest are from an agency and are in the same bubble.
