Farmers deliver stark warning over access to EU seasonal workers

NFU president says food will 'rot in the fields' unless government guarantees access to workforce

Farmers have warned that food will "rot in the fields" and Britain will be unable to produce what it eats if the government cannot guarantee that growers will continue to have access to tens of thousands of EU workers after Brexit.

Meurig Raymond, president of the National Farmers' Union, told the body's annual conference in Birmingham that farmers and food processors, particularly in horticulture and poultry, were already having difficulty recruiting.