Central Asian workers now make up 85.9% of respondents to the UK government's seasonal workers survey, up from 30.4% in 2021. This shift shows a fundamental change in where British agriculture finds its harvest workers — a change that accelerated after Freedom of Movement with the EU ended five years ago.

The four countries driving this figure are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan held the largest single share in 2023 at 33.4% of all survey respondents. Home Office immigration statistics cited by IOM put the Central Asian share of the total scheme at 78%, consistent with the survey trend. The government's qualitative review also recorded farms recruiting from Turkmenistan, extending the Central Asian footprint across all five post-Soviet republics in the region.

The Route and How It Developed

The current system has a brief but eventful history. A Seasonal Workers Pilot under the Temporary Visas T5 route began in 2019 with a limited scope. It expanded to 10,000 places in 2020, and from January 2021 onwards — when Freedom of Movement with the EU formally ended — the quota grew each year to replace the supply of Central and Eastern European workers who had previously filled picking and packing roles under EU treaty rights.

That European supply chain was substantial. In France, for example, farm unions estimated two-thirds of seasonal agricultural workers were EU nationals from Central and Eastern Europe as recently as 2020. The UK relied on the same workforce. Brexit cut off access almost overnight.

Central Asia became the operational solution. Scheme operators — the licensed recruiters who connect the Home Office with individual farms — built recruitment networks in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Rural unemployment in these countries, wages paid in dollars, and existing migration networks made hiring at scale feasible. The survey data shows how fast this infrastructure grew: from less than a third of respondents in 2021 to nearly nine in ten by 2023.

Why This Matters Beyond the Farm Gate

The Seasonal Worker visa is far from a small program. The Migration Advisory Committee's 2024 annual report found it accounts for over 75% of all work visas issued and has the largest impact on net migration figures of any work route. This makes the Central Asian shift important beyond agriculture — it is now a major driver of the migration numbers at the heart of UK politics.

The visa allows stays of up to six months for work in fruit, vegetable, and flower production, plus broader farm work. The six-month limit means the workforce turns over twice a year, creating constant pressure on recruiters to deliver workers on time and at scale.

The bigger picture raises questions the government's review has left unanswered. When recruitment is concentrated in a single region, you create a weak point: diplomatic tension, regional instability, or a competing country offering better terms could disrupt supply chains that British farms now depend on as a core part of their operations rather than a backup. Kyrgyzstan alone — a country of roughly 7 million people — is being asked to supply more than a third of what the MAC describes as the dominant work visa route by volume.

There is also a worker-welfare angle. The Work Rights Centre has published preparation resources specifically for Central Asian workers entering UK farm employment. This acknowledges that workers arriving from Bishkek or Dushanbe face different legal and informational gaps than those who previously came from Romania or Bulgaria, where EU standards created a baseline level of alignment.

The shift from a European to a Central Asian labour base happened quickly, driven by policy necessity rather than long-term planning. Whether the infrastructure — recruitment networks, compliance systems, and worker support — has kept pace with that speed is something the next phase of the scheme's review will need to examine directly.