There's plenty of agricultural industry in EE (at least in Poland), it's just that it pays a pittance, so the locals prefer to go west, while farmers employ migrants from poorer countries.

Indeed, but with growing costs and lowering stocks in WE, and people forced to stay in their own countries, things could change. Ideally for the benefit of of workers too as EE farmers might have to increase wages as well. Those who own plots of land could even start farming on their own and coop to sell in WE countries.

That's such a fucked up cycle.

Doesn’t it prosper everyone? What happens if the workers from the poorest countries aren’t allowed to work in the wealthier countries? Surely they and the wealthier countries are all worse off? “Non-zero-sum game” and all that...

I've noticed that often people who think fruit picking and other "undesirable" jobs should be done by locsl people, never express any interest in doing the aforementioned jobs themselves.

So you think we should force the people to stay in the poorer country?

You can't force people to stay in a country, but you can certainly prevent people from coming in a country.

I dont think we should - COVID does. People are forced to stay in their own countries due to travel restrictions. And it is likely this pandemic will last for a while, and with summer coming, people might just as well work locally until this nightmare is over.

how can they work locally when they're not allowed to exit their flats?

also the fear of gettting C19 in EE is much greater than in Western Europe.

I think EE population will be the last one actually going outside. and there were reports of people saying they will never go out again like before.

I am not sure if the fear is greater - the fear is ending up in public hospitals in some of those countries, but people are pretty static and cities / homes not as crowded as in WE and as such more difficult to spread the virus.

But re workers, restrictions of leaving ones home only apply to non essential work.

You can't grow 1 ha of tomatoes and go sell them them to supermarkets. They want stability of hundreds of kilograms every day.