Brexit means goodbye to Low Hanging Fruit Pickers from the EU

Grapes of Wrath?

Automation is coming to the agricultural industry, displacing the manual worker.

With many seasonal workers coming to the UK to pick fruit and vegetables, those days could soon be coming to an end thanks to the march of the robots.

Robotic pickers that can analyse produce for growth, readiness and optimum picking time are now coming in to play.

The units can 'read' produce to determine suitability for collection, this means that the best ready fruit is picked and at any time of the day or night. The machines can 'remember' and know where to pick due their vast memory. Essentially their data builds 'picking lists' and the machine selects only those optimum stocks.

This ensures profitability, with no or much reduced human labour costs, a one off investment in machines which can work almost all of the time, less servicing time which will often be out of the growing season and less wastage.

With a 'to the provider' level of optimum condition 'prime' products, this removes much of the attributable waste that can be claimed by an end seller such as a supermarket, which is a winner for the producer.

The automation march is certainly impacting the workplace in not just low skilled work but all the way up to the top levels of the game.