Polish orchardists are relatively competitive in global markets, having had lower production costs than many countries in Western Europe and the world for a long time. However, this advantage is slowly diminishing due to a shortage of relatively cheap labor for harvesting. Since the war, it has become increasingly difficult to find workers from Ukraine. Additionally, the visa scandal has caused many consulates worldwide to tighten their visa issuance policies. This affects countries like Uzbekistan, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia, where many people are willing to come to Poland to work in fruit harvesting. Therefore, clear, non-corrupt solutions are needed to allow tens of thousands of workers to come for seasonal work. In a few years, Poland may need as many as 100,000 people just to harvest blueberries on time. This will impact sales volumes both in the domestic market and in export markets.
“We are convincing officials that facilitating the influx of workers to Poland is crucial for our competitiveness and, consequently, for the state’s budget revenues. Unfortunately, this is very difficult,” said Mirosław Maliszewski, Member of the Polish Parliament, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, and President of the Polish Association of Orchardists, to eNewsroom.pl. “We are constantly highlighting new directions from which we can recruit workers – one such direction could be South America. For example, workers from Venezuela would be very willing to come to Poland and work. Unfortunately, too few workers come because the visa issuance procedure is too cumbersome and too expensive. There are too few visa windows where consuls accept and issue visas. There are many countries that are safe for Poland – meaning workers from these countries have never posed and are unlikely to pose any social or religious threat in Poland. These are people who want to come to Poland, work, earn money, and then return to their families with those earnings,” Maliszewski points out.
