Growing up in rural Pembrokeshire in the 1970s and 1980s, my school holidays were spent picking potatoes.

It was exhausting work, by the end of the day all I longed for was a bath and my bed.

I do have very happy memories of that time though, not simply because childhood memories can be distorted by the rosy glow of those carefree times.

I worked with my sisters and our friends, the farmer would feed us and the money seemed an impressive sum back then.

I liked the sense of camaraderie, working as a team, and it laid the foundation for a strong work ethic. Once you have picked potatoes for hours in the blazing sun nothing is physically impossible!

Much of that work is now mechanised but not so the job of picking soft fruit and vegetables.

British workers have shied away from those jobs in recent years so migrant workers have taken up the slack but coronavirus means those workers won’t be with us this year.

By all accounts we will be short of about 50,000 seasonal workers and that is a serious problem for farmers.

To plug the gap, they have joined forces and launched a nationwide recruitment drive, calling on us Brits to "Feed the Nation" by taking up seasonal roles in the fields, as the country did with our Land Army during the Second World War.

It's fair to say that British workers have turned their noses up at seasonal farm work in recent years, perhaps partly due to the availability of other jobs in more comfortable surroundings.

For those that have lost their jobs as a result of the crisis this is an opportunity for a different kind of work.

This call to arms needs to be answered soon or the country could experience a supply shortage that would trigger higher prices.

Sowing and growing is the modern army in 2020.

Perhaps, when this crisis passes, we may even see students coming back to the job that kept me in work all those years ago.