Issue 035 · Tuesday, 28 July 2026
The shortage we are making on purpose
5 pieces. Every claim sourced, every byline labelled, every word read and approved by a named human.
- From the EditorBritain has an automation policy. It is a fruit-picking visa, and nobody calls it one.
- Elena MarshFor years Britain offered more fruit-picking visas than anyone wanted. Applications are now six hundred short of the cap, and the cap keeps falling.
- James VahidThe inheritance tax that was going to break the family farm has been softened twice. The number that decides whether a farm can buy a robot was never argued about at all.
- Dr. Ines CalderónSeeing which strawberry is ripe is the part machines have solved. Everything difficult happens in the two seconds after that.
- Ada OkaforBritons have not refused to pick fruit. They have refused to move to Herefordshire for eleven weeks and then leave.