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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Joanna Partridge

Australian rivals and Brexit barriers leave UK farmers on stony ground

A group of workers in a field picking lettuce and putting them on the conveyor belt of a machine
EU workers at a farm in Tarleton, Lancashire, in 2019. Brexit and the pandemic have led to a severe shortage of seasonal workers in the UK. Photograph: MediaWorldImages/Alamy

Swapping their pastures for the concrete jungle, hundreds of Britain’s farmers will take off their wellies this week and head to a conference centre in central Birmingham for the annual shindig of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).

Nearly 1,500 food producers will meet to discuss the “blueprint for the future” of British farming, against the backdrop of the biggest upheaval in a generation in agriculture, following the UK’s departure from the EU and the pandemic, and amid discussions about future land use in the face of the climate crisis.

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