A CALL has gone out to people to join a land army to help feed the nation.

As the workforce stays home and many companies have already started to collapse, farms find themselves in need of tens of thousands of workers to harvest the food the nation needs.

The British Growers Association estimates the UK needs 70,000 seasonal workers this year to help get this harvest in.

Without them, it is just not possible to get the food out of the ground and into the supply chain, potentially resulting in food shortages.

There have been calls around the country for a way to connect farms with potential workers, but no network has existed to rapidly deploy large numbers of workers to where they are needed.

UK-based Home Grown is behind the Land Army initiative, utilising its existing mapping technology to link up workers with farms.

The aim is to make the workforce and employers accessible to each other within minutes, minimising disruption to production and, wherever possible, keeping people in work.

Farms and workers can put themselves on a map and see where local opportunities are.

This method takes out the need for lengthy recruitment processes and centralised vetting from agencies, leaving the farms to recruit at the speed required.

Using innovative technology, Home Grown is working with partners to bring farms and workers together in real-time – providing an easy-to-register operations centre which places workforce supply and demand on the map.

If you have recently found yourself out of work and are able to join the Land Army (#landarmy on social media), then get yourself on the map.

Edwina Mullins, vice-chair for #ClubHectare, an online rural network, who is working with Home Grown to promote the initiative, said: “Helping our domestic sustainability is crucial. We have many people in the country out of work, especially in the hospitality, construction and retail industries. At the same time, we have farms desperate for workers. There is a need to build community relationships to create a thriving home marketplace for British farming and British workers."