A huge problem for the primary sector in our country is the lack of workers.

Greek farmers are in despair seeing their crops often even destroyed because they cannot harvest them.

In any case, it is clear that there are no Greek farmers available to harvest agricultural products.

The shortage of foreign land workers threatens to blow up the country’s agricultural production, testing the endurance of Greek farmers.

Today, there are an estimated 100,000 fewer active residence permits in the country than in the recent past.

The flight of foreign land workers began during the pandemic.

The closing of the borders led the rich countries of the North to offer high wages to attract land workers who until then worked in Greece.

In addition to high wages, foreign land workers who had traveled and worked legally or illegally in the country have recently moved to countries such as Italy and Portugal where they can more easily obtain legal documents

Although the hospitality conditions have improved after incidents such as Manolada in 2013, the facilities continue to fall short of their counterparts in the rich European north.

It is estimated that this year the primary sector will need over 100,000 transferable land workers, on 9-month work permits.

However, the process required for a worker to request labor from countries such as India, Bangladesh and Pakistan is so complex and time-consuming that it makes the measure unworkable.

The government’s announcement to legalize up to 300,000 illegal immigrants to work legally in the country has been frozen.

The burden of solving the problem falls on the Ministry of Immigration, with farmers demanding immediate solutions to save the year.

The Greek state, in order to try to solve the problem, seeks to speed up the processes of repatriation of workers from countries such as India and Pakistan, for a period of 9 months, while at the same time aiming for relevant bilateral agreements.