This is harvest time. And depending on where you are the fields are heavy with wheat or areca nuts, coffee or tea, strawberries or melons, white asparagus or cabbage. But no matter where you are you would have heard the refrain --- where have all the harvesters gone? A refrain that is at once question, lament and concern, but above all, ironical. After all, when in recent memory has anyone spared a thought for the swathes of faceless nameless harvesters and their address?

Strawberry fields

The UK is experiencing a shortage of 70,000 to 80,000 harvesters. Some farms reportedly chartered flights to bring in fruit and vegetable pickers from Romania. Germany which relies on 300,000 seasonal workers each year is anxiously waiting for them to harvest the precious spargel. Ireland is missing its Slovakian strawberry pickers. It is peak harvesting season in Spain which happens to be the European Union's biggest exporter of fruits and vegetables. But border restrictions and lockdown have kept away the immigrant force. They are looking to Moroccans to help them out. The president of the Italian agriculture association has said the sector needs 250,000 people to help with harvests. France is missing its farm force from Spain and Poland. And local strawberry farmers of Croatia are missing pickers from Bosnia and Herzegovina who typically do this backbreaking job. As for the US, more than 50 per cent of its agricultural workforce is made up of undocumented immigrants, mostly from Mexico, while Canada’s farms rely on 60,000 temporary foreign workers.

As you sow...

In India and The Neighbourhood, the missing workforce comprises migrants, not immigrants. Labour crisis is affecting Boro harvesting in Bangladesh. Nepalese migrant workers are stranded in India when they have to be home for farm work. And Pakistan’s prodigious mango crop --- 1.7 million tonnes of mangoes are produced every year --- exported to more than 50 countries, might perish for want of pickers and packers. Here in India, migrant farm labourers have either returned to their home states or are in the process of returning. Even post lockdown not everyone will return to the fields though. Like Jamlo Kadam, 12, who was travelling from Telangana to Chhattisgarh, when she died. She used to work in a chilli farm.

It is harvest time people.