The number of foreign workers seeking help over claims of exploitation, bullying, underpayment and poor living conditions on U.K. farms significantly increased last year, reports BBC News.

Nearly 700 foreign seasonal agricultural laborers complained to the Worker Support Centre (WSC) U.K. charity in 2024, claiming they were being treated unfairly by farmers who had brought them into the country to work, compared to just over 400 in 2023.

The U.K. government, which will provide 45,000 seasonal worker visas to migrant laborers in 2025, said it always took "decisive action" if abusive practices were found on farms.At least one migrant worker, Bolivian Julia Quecano Casimiro, was found in an initial ruling by the U.K. Home Office in January 2024 to have presented reasonable grounds to believe she had been a victim of modern slavery.

Campaigners now want a review of the seasonal agricultural worker scheme and of any exploitation risks it presents.

Read More: U.K. Supermarkets Investigating Alleged Mistreatment of Migrant Fishers

A survey carried out early last year by the U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) found 91% of respondents reported a positive experience working on U.K. farms.

However, the WSC, which works to prevent abuses of marginalized workers, said it dealt with a rise in complaints about the scheme during 2024.

The level of abuse of farm workers is much higher in the U.S., according to many sources, in part because a huge proportion are working illegally, and therefore have no rights or recourse in the face of poor treatment. The Guardian points to a longstanding problem in the U.S. agricultural industry, where workers are smuggled from Central American countries to the U.S., and imprisoned as contracted farm workers.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that, in 2020–22, 32% of crop farmworkers were U.S.-born, 7% were immigrants who had obtained U.S. citizenship, 19% were other authorized immigrants (primarily permanent residents or green-card holders), and a shocking 42% held no work authorization.