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To the Farms, Citoyens! France Urges Citizens to Fill Labor Gaps

Lisa Bryant

   PARIS - Across a locked-down France, strawberries, lettuce and
   asparagus are ripening, near-ready for picking. Other plants are poking
   through the warming soil, thanks to rising temperatures and generous
   sunshine. But the tens of thousands of Polish, Romanian and Moroccan
   workers who normally flood in for spring harvest are nowhere in sight.

   France is not the only country facing a migrant labor crunch. With the
   coronavirus battening down national borders, many other European
   farmers also are hurting.

   In Britain, agricultural unions are pressing the government to fly in
   Eastern European workers on chartered planes. Germany announced
   Thursday it would relax border restrictions to fill gaps in fields and
   food processing plants.

   Spain and Italy also worry about unpicked fruits and vegetables rotting
   in fields, further hurting their coronavirus-battered economies.

   But in France, the European Union's biggest agricultural producer,
   filling the labor shortage has become a national cause -- although
   reactions from the farming world are mixed.

   Appealing to leagues of newly sidelined workers -- waitresses, hotel
   workers, hairdressers and others rendered jobless and confined by
   COVID-19 --Farm Minister Didier Guillaume urged them to "join the great
   army of French agriculture."

   Solid response

   The rallying cry has resonated strongly in a country where food and
   rural life are embedded in popular culture and the nation's very
   identity.

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