The mechanisation dilemma

Quality producers want their grapes hand-picked – but labour shortages are looming. Caroline Gilby MW looks at the situation in Eastern Europe.

Romania/Credit: Caroline Gilby MW
Romania/Credit: Caroline Gilby MW

Good wine may be made in the vineyard, but it doesn’t happen without human intervention, traditionally done by hand. With an ageing workforce in most of Europe and an increasing reluctance among young people to take on poorly paid, physically hard outdoor jobs, the problem of labour availability is on the minds of many winemakers.

 So far, Western Europe has solved its labour needs by recruiting workers from elsewhere especially Eastern Europe. Phillip Cox of Romanian winery Cramele Recaș estimates that three to four million Romanian citizens work abroad, particularly in Italy and Spain where they are the biggest group of migrant agricultural workers. Significant numbers of migrant workers also come from Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland. This, at least in normal years, has left a significant gap in their home countries, where vineyard labour has become such an issue that there are regular reports of vines left unpicked, or grapes picked too late. This leaves Eastern Europe in need of solutions – with potential lessons for wineries in Western Europe. 

The eastern situation

Most Western countries quickly exempted agricultural workers from quarantine, with desperate farmers and vineyard owners even chartering flights to move workers. Yet, Cox said, Romania has had a short-term boost in labour availability thanks to Covid-19. Early lockdown measures brought many workers home, while another one million have lost jobs in sectors like automotive and manufacturing industries. “I don’t expect that to last much longer and it’s still hard to get people to do temporary work like harvesting,” said Cox. 

It’s not just Romania that is suffering. Vine Care UK is now the biggest supplier of vineyard workers to the UK wine industry and their team is largely Romanian.  “Most of our workers are skilled vineyard workers. They return year after year and some have now been working in the wine industry here for 12 years,” said director Paul Woodrow-Hill. 

Covid-19 measures and, in the case of the UK, Brexit, have added additional complications. While Vine Care’s regular workers have applied for settled status, anyone without settled or pre-settled status will not be permitted to work in the UK. “There is the potential therefore that many farms will struggle to find sufficient workers when they need them next year,” said Woodrow-Hill.

At some point, the wine industry must adapt and there are broadly two different directions it could take. One is to reduce the need for people through mechanisation. The other is to make viticultural work more attractive. 

Increasing mechanisation and rethinking workforce tasks is an obvious solution, though it comes with costs. Mechanical harvesting is one option where allowed – the Tokaji region, for example, has just permitted machine picking for dry wine from the 2020 harvest. It will be increasingly common, though this can be a major financial commitment, with a harvesting machine potentially costing €100,000 to €200,000. 

Șerban Damboviceanu at Corcova, Romania, has accelerated his plans for mechanising jobs because of Covid-19. He stopped manual weeding and says, “As we still do not want to use herbicides, we are using now a machine. The investment is about €20,000 with amortization over four to five years.” Dan Balaban, the owner of Davino in Romania’s Dealu Mare region, reckons most wineries in the area have also switched to machine harvesting. He has invested €100,000 in the last three years for mechanisation, in part to reduce labour needs but also to improve working conditions. He cites electrical pruners, which improve efficiency from 300 to 1000 vines per day, while also reducing discomfort and effort. Dimitar Dimov, a winemaker at Suvla in Turkey and owner at Yalovo in Bulgaria, agrees, “We need to adapt – more mechanization, fewer seasonal workers and more full-time multifunctional workers.” He said that his year he had worked with a skilful Bulgarian worker, who was able to prune an entire vineyard with electric scissors, for which he was well paid. “The previous year I was contracting ten to 15 people for two to three days and paying the same.” 

György Lőrincz Jr of the St Andrea winery in Eger, Hungary adds, “At our quality level, we cannot mechanize everything,” but whatever they can mechanise, they do, “like trimming the shoots, defoliation, under-vine soil tillage, trunk brushing.”  István Balassa, owner of Hungary’s Balassa winery, has reduced his vineyard holding from 14ha to 10ha because of problems getting workers. He has been replanting his vineyards for the last three years, making it easier to use trimming machines and mechanical hoeing; his pruning costs have been reduced by 20%.

However, mechanisation is not always possible; Philip Cox estimated that over 50% of vineyards in Romania can’t be machine-picked, due to the trellising or fragile concrete posts. Machine picking of small plots, steep slopes or narrow terraces is also not feasible. “Jobs that can’t be mechanised on our terraces are spraying, pruning, green work, harvesting, under-vine soil tillage. It is basically because of the steepness (63°) and stones,” explains Vivien Ujvári, winemaker at Barta in Tokaj, Hungary. “Then there are certain styles of wine where hand harvesting is essential, for instance picking individual berries for Tokaji Aszú.” 

Improving conditions

The other possibility is making the wine industry a better place to work – Balaban says that paying wages closer to Western European norms helps. He believes that better wineries are paying closer to €35-€40 per day, compared to a more typical €20 per day. He adds that his prices are aligned with international markets and wages can be too, so it doesn’t mean he has to charge higher prices.

“We pay our workers more than other wineries, because we want to keep the good ones. On average even our lowest salaries are double the legal minimum,” says Cox. He explains that having invested €25m in replanting and mechanising jobs previously done manually, he can pay higher wages for the people he has retained and still remain competitive. He adds, “Our customers also strongly insist on us using best labour and ethical practices.”

Militza Zikatanova of Villa Melnik says that normally many agricultural workers go from Bulgaria to UK and Germany but this year, many couldn’t travel or came back early. “A few such workers who joined our winery’s team were surprised to find that their work conditions and quality of life are much better in Bulgaria than in the UK – yes, the pay is higher in the UK, but so is the cost of living. What is more, there is no work-life balance in the UK while here, they have regular working hours. We hope that next year, some will choose to stay in Bulgaria.”

For context, the gross minimum wage is €467 per month in Romania, €487 per month in Hungary and €312 in Bulgaria, so it’s not hard for workers to double or treble that amount by working elsewhere in Europe.  István Szepsy Jr explains that his family winery contracts their workers all year round and pays a bonus to motivate productivity, but that only a handful of wineries in the region can do this. Ujvári explains that by taking on the extra work of submitting paperwork directly to the government, rather than using a contractor, Barta winery can pay a better salary and try to keep their workers for the long term. László Mészáros, managing director of Disznókő in Hungary, says they can still find workers from local villages. “They like to work with us, because we give them work for several weeks, not just a couple of days as a smaller producer can offer. Ten to fifteen years ago we had older, pensioned farmers, mostly women, for the Aszú picking. That has largely changed in the region, but we are lucky to still have them.” But this is not a universal solution. For instance, in nearby Eger, Lőrincz Jr says, “We have tried to give workers a job all year so that they can count on this, but no one has taken it up.”

Dimov finds that, “It is not a question of money. Young people (both in Turkey and Bulgaria) don’t want heavy work, whatever the payment.” He adds that they often don’t have the skills either and don’t want to learn; he says he bought two tonnes of Pinot Noir that had been harvested in less than four hours by five women aged between 60 and 70. “My neighbouring vineyard contracted 25 young guys – they could barely harvest eight tonnes in eight hours. Less than half the productivity.”

Andrea Sauska of Hungary’s Sauska Winery sees a sense of pride as important, “Fine vineyard work is carefully planned and executed by a team we know and trust. These local people are part of our ‘one plot-one worker’ program.” She goes on, “They know what we do and why we do it. They are proud of their work and feel connected to the vineyards they work on. We often feature them on Instagram and Facebook.” 

Another solution from Szepsy Winery is to set up a shared vineyard rental scheme with their team of workers. The workers and their families do all the hand labour alongside their main job and supply the grapes back to the winery. The winery supports this by financing materials and mechanical tasks, and taking the risks of hail, frost and birds. The workers can earn an annual tax-free allowance of €1,800 for “handcrafted” production in agriculture in Hungary. Szepsy admits that this approach is only feasible for wineries selling in more premium price bands. But he feels that such partnerships can help solve the labour issue and offer an incentive to return from Western Europe. 

The wider Tokaj region has also recognised that labour shortages are a strategic issue. The regional council has set up a Tokaj Academy, working with local viticultural schools and wineries to provide placements and jobs. Council president Péter Molnár says, “So far so far it is working well to increase the pool of skilled labour.” 

Handwork in vineyards looks set to be an increasing challenge for wineries all over Europe. It’s hitting Eastern Europe first, as so many of their working-age citizens have opted for higher-paid roles abroad. Wineries are developing strategies to cope – including mechanisation, better pay and working conditions and building a sense of loyalty around the job. None of these are solutions on their own and wineries will have to keep evolving if they are to stay viable with fewer people.  

Caroline Gilby MW

 

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