NFU warns blanket import checks from April could fuel long delays and damage future crops. / The UK’s fruit and flower growers face an “existential threat” from new post-Brexit border checks that could damage business and affect next year’s crops, the country’s biggest farming body has said.

With a lack of foreign labour in Britain’s fields, crops are rotting and thousands of healthy pigs are being culled unnecessarily.

The number of seasonal workers applying to work at one Kent-based company is down 90% in the last two years and there are fears for the future.

Unprecedented labour shortages have left hundreds of tonnes of produce rotting in the fields.