EXCLUSIVE Foreign fruit and veg picker claims he earns 12 TIMES more in UK after moving over from Tajikistan to cover for ‘workshy’ Brits
A fruit and vegetable picker from poverty-stricken Tajikistan who travelled to the UK to work says he earns 12 times more than back home – as his mother hopes he will return to his country a rich man.
Siyovush Abdurahmonous, 30, says he is the first person from his village Nijoni, to venture to England.
He is one of several migrant workers from Tajikistan who say they can make ‘a fortune’ picking fruit and vegetables in the UK from Canterbury to Cornwall – jobs which the farmers say ‘workshy’ Brits refuse to do.
The farms gain industrious, well-behaved workers and the migrants, who are mostly men, receive pay which they could only dream about back home.
Siyovush’s mother Dilorom said that when her son – the only breadwinner – returns to his wife Nilufar, 30, and sons Kvonchbek, 12, Davlatbeck, eight, and six-year-old Mehrojbek, he expects to have accumulated a tidy nest egg of around $10,000 (£7,800).
‘He took a big risk going to England and I’m very proud that he’s the first man from around here to go to England. He’s like a pioneer,’ Dilorom said.
‘He said he would give it a try and if he didn’t like it, he’d come back, but it’s been better than we dreamed of. When he comes back he will be a rich man in the village.’
Tajikistan’s average monthly wage is just $203 (£160), so Siyovush’s earnings in six months – around £2,000 a month – are equivalent to an incredible four years’ salary back home.
Migrant worker Siyovush Abdurahmonous in the UK, where he is working as a fruit and vegetable picker
Abdurahmonous, 30, says he is the first person from his village Nijoni, to venture to England
Siyovush’s family at their home in Tajikistan – Dilorom (his mother), Nilufar (his wife) and sons 12-year-old Kuvonchbek, Daulatbek, eight, and Mehrojbek, 6
A man herding goats in Khujand, Tajikistan. Tajikistan’s average monthly wage is just $203 (£160)
Tajikistan, the former Soviet republic is one of the poorest countries on earth, with a GDP about a fiftieth of Britain’s, according to the IMF. For decades, Tajikistan’s biggest export has been people, with up to a quarter of its 10 million population working abroad at any one time.
Traditionally, most have gone to Russia, but increasingly British farmers, starved of EU labour post-Brexit, are looking much further east to recruit in Tajikistan and its neighbours Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, bringing thousands to the UK on sponsored work visas.
Whereas some Tajiks have used their foreign earnings to buy rental apartments and even flash Mercedes AMG cars, Siyovush’s plans for his first windfall of British apple-picking are rather more basic.
He wants to knock down a mud and straw-built barn and turn it into a bedroom and adjoining bathroom with running water so that the family will no longer be forced to use the ‘long-drop’ pit latrine with a mud slit in the corner of their family compound.
We spoke to Siyovush by WhatsApp video call while sitting in the mud and breeze-block compound which he, his wife, three sons and his widowed mother call home, along with his sister’s family of three.
In the dusty yard outside, a cow was tethered and squawking chickens scrabbled around among the pruned stumps of a tiny vineyard, conjuring up Sacha Baron Cohen’s fictional TV reporter Borat’s home in Kazakhstan.
As Siyovush panned his phone around the static caravan he shares with five of his countrymen on a fruit farm near Canterbury, Kent, his widowed mother Dilorom’s eyes lit up and she remarked that the furniture and kitchen fittings looked far more modern than her own.
Sitting on floor cushions, around the family table, she told us: ‘I didn’t know much about England when my son said he wanted to go there. I had heard of the Thames River and the royal princes and princesses, but not much else.
‘We were very worried that he was going so far away – most men travel to Russia to earn some money, and Siyovush has been there labouring on construction sites a few times.’
Dilorom, the mother of migrant worker Siyovush, at her home in Tajikistan near to the border with Uzbekistan
‘He took a big risk going to England and I’m very proud that he’s the first man from around here to go to England. He’s like a pioneer,’ his mum said
Siyovush’s earnings in six months are equivalent to an incredible four years’ salary back home
Niulfar said that when word of her husband’s good fortune spreads around the village, after he returns this week at the end of his six-month stint, others are likely to follow in his footsteps.
‘The men can earn far more in England than in Russia,’ she said.
And eldest son Kvonchbek, told us: ‘When I grow up, I want to be like my dad and travel the world and go to England.’
Beaming with cheeks as rosy, red as the apples he’s been picking on the farm 4,000 miles away in Kent, Siyovush – a lifelong Chelsea FC fan – told how he had heard on the grapevine about fruit and veg picking jobs on offer in England and then found an ad on Facebook.
He arrived in the UK in June and has picked strawberries, cherries and apples, now cauliflowers, while in Kent. He had to take out a bank loan for $3,000 (£2,400) to cover the visa and travel fees, which he has long since repaid. Part of the money also covers health and travel insurance for the duration of his stay in the UK.
‘It’s very good here, we are well looked after,’ he told MailOnline. ‘They like us because they know we will work hard. I’m surprised that British people don’t seem to want to do these jobs.’
A vegetable market in Khujand, Tajikistan – the former Soviet republic is one of the poorest countries on earth
Men on bicycles in Khujand, Tajikistan – which has a GDP about a fiftieth of Britain’s, according to the IMF
For decades, Tajikistan’s biggest export has been people, with up to a quarter of its 10 million population working abroad at any one time. Pictured is a vegetable market
He joked: ‘They are happy to sit around not doing very much, but they do drink a lot – maybe they are hung over!’
The workers are paid the minimum wage of £10.42 per hour, with more if they choose to do overtime beyond the 48-hour week, and all do. They can also be paid in piecework by the box of fruit, rather than by the hour, which can work out more beneficial for fast pickers.
When bad weather stops the pickers from working, they are also paid something to keep them going, which Siyovush said ‘would never happen in Russia, where the migrants are left to fend for themselves.’
Sharing a self-catering static caravan with five other Tajiks, Siyovush says that in one day he can earn enough money to pay for his modest food bill for an entire month. His only other expense is the £63-a-week rent paid to the farm for the accommodation, so his remittances home via Western Union have been generous and frequent.
The farm employs around 300 pickers who come from Tajikistan, Krygyzstan and Uzbekistan as well as Ukraine and Romania.
Siyovush’s sons Kuvonchbek and Daulatbek with the family cow
A man riding and leading donkeys in Khujand, Tajikistan
Siyovush said on his days off, he has been to London and his photos home show him at all the London landmarks, ticking them off, Borat-style, as many of his countrymen have also done. He also visited Stamford Bridge to pay homage to his beloved Blues.
After a few months back home, he’ll be heading back to Britain, he hopes, with no doubt many more of his countrymen alongside him.
Siyovush spoke to MailOnline after one of his countrymen made similar claims about earning lots of money picking cauliflowers on a farm in Cornwall doing backbreaking work and gruelling hours that British workers are reluctant to do.
Ali Mulloev, 24, also from northern Tajikistan, says working in the West Country enabled him to enjoy a ‘luxurious life’, buying two properties back home with the brand new Mercedes on the drive.
He earns up to £500 per week – ten times as much as he could back home – picking cauliflowers over the winter on an 8,000-acre farm.
David Simmons, a fifth-generation proprietor of Riveria Produce in Hayle, Cornwall, where Ali works says they are finding it ‘impossible’ to hire local workers to pick their crops over the winter.
David says he once had an estate bustling with local staff but said people are now ‘just not interested’.
Siyovush’s son Kuvonchbek with one of the family chickens
A vegetable market in Khujand, Tajikistan.
‘The problem is, Brits have got it too cushy. We’re not hungry enough,’ he told BBC Two’s Simon Reeves Return to Cornwall.
‘They would rather go behind the bar or work in a hotel or do something which is less strenuous.’
The award-winning farmer said his foreign workers were ‘totally dedicated to earning money’.
‘Their psyche is totally different to a lot of young people in the UK now,’ he continued. ‘Their psyche is to go out, earn as much money as they can as fast as they can; try and get their house, and get everything they want in life. And you’ve got to admire them for doing it.’
The end of free movement for EU workers post-Brexit meant that during the 2020 pandemic, Mr Simmons was forced to double down his efforts to get locals in to help pick his crop.
Adverts were placed in the local papers, social media and on TV, with 250 people expressing an interest. But of this, only 37 ever arrived – with numbers dwindling rapidly.
‘Within seven weeks we had one person left. We just couldn’t get any more people to come,’ Mr Simmons said, adding: ‘We’re just desperate to try and get local people to come and do this work but they’re just not interested.’
Now 75 per cent of his pickers are from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with some coming from Ukraine and India. None are from the UK. The figures on Mr Simmons’ farm reflect the national picture, where 98 per cent of the UK’s 45,000 pickers have come from elsewhere in the globe, including Barbados, Kenya and Nepal.
Riviera works with recruitment companies who source staff primarily in the old Soviet Bloc and tell them what the job entails.
Fresh workers then fly over and live in campervans that sleep two to six people. Recruits are mostly male but some are female, are typically aged between 20 and 40, and some arrive with relatives.
Speaking of his team, Mr Simmons said: ‘The people that come over are wonderful people, they really are. I’ve got the utmost respect for them, to go from one side of the world to the other and do this.’
In 2019, the quota for international pickers working in the UK was 2,500. But this has since been raised to 45,000 this year – which can be increased a further 10,000 a year if the Government deems it necessary.
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