With the Coronavirus pandemic raging across the world, many agricultural industries and those working in them have received mounts of praise as “essential workers”, yet in the past decades, farmers in Europe were barely even visible, with the EU’s farming policy overlooking basic labor rights and conditions.

The European Union has a common agricultural policy that was designed to support farmers. This policy actually accounts for well over a third of the Union’s budget and brings in almost 60 billion euros each year. However, even though it is supposed to help farmers, working conditions are not even discussed in the subsidies scheme.

Der Spiegel, Euronews, Mediapart, and Lighthouse Reports, all conducted a joint, thorough investigation by interviewing farm workers all across Europe, most of which are migrants.

These people had many complaints in common with each other, including unpaid hours, immense pressure, scarce access to water, little to no protection, and exhaustion taking its toll in the form of fainting or vomiting. They also showed their critical housing situation and some even spoke of cases of verbal, physical and even sexual abuse.

Taking Spain, Europe’s number one producer of fruit and vegetables, as an example, strawberries constitute a rich business that creates around 500 million euros in revenue each year, operating out of the southern province of Huelva.

However, this “red gold” industry isn’t as picture-perfect as it’s made out to be. Several of the farmers living and working in Huelva are undocumented migrants that live in “chabolas.” Chabolas are small shacks made of left over pieces of cardboard, plastic residue from greenhouses, and discarded pallets, with no access to any form of sanitation, electricity, or clean water.

Seydou Diop, a former worker who used to pick strawberries and live in these conditions, has expressed his plight to Euronews, saying that they don’t understand how “a country as developed as Spain, a European country, can allow for this situation to go on.”

Diop now fronts a worker’s collective that helps undocumented migrants, a group he says makes up a large part of farmers in and around the region.

Aside from Diop, around 20 current and former workers were interviewed about their conditions, most of which chose not to be identified for fear of reprisal. Each and every one of these workers spoke of unpaid hours, extremely harsh conditions and again, immense pressure.

“It’s medieval. If you don’t collect the amount requested, there are punishments of one, two or three days where stay home without pay. So, on those days, you can’t bring money home.”

José Antonio Brazo, a SAT union representative in Huelva

Last year, ten women coming from Morocco filed a lawsuit against Doñana 1998, another farm in the area. These women described instances of trafficking, sexual assault, exploitation, sexual and psychological abuse, not getting paid, starvation, forced prostitution, and said that coming to Spain had destroyed their lives.

For several of these women, speaking up about their conditions has brought on divorce, losing custody of children, and public shaming. With Doñana 1998 stating that all of the allegations are false, the women’s lawyers have said that the ten women have “come to symbolize what is wrong with the industry.”

Several representatives have said that the pressure on fruit pickers has increased dramatically ever since the pandemic began and lockdown was induced, saying that work inspections were almost non-existent, and that many were not given any masks or gloves.

Moving on to France, the EU’s largest producer of oilseeds and cereals, a young Colombian named Juan has described his conditions in this country’s agricultural industry. Juan went to work for Larrère farms and was hired by a subcontractor that regularly provides workers to Larrère and other farms.

After his two-month experience working on a working holiday visa, Juan was repatriated to Colombia due to a deep disappointment in conditions. For starters, Juan was living in a guest house that held over 40 seasonal workers.

Tenants in this house paid up to 200 euros a month, an amount that was directly deducted from their paycheck. Juan described the place as a disaster, saying that five adults were packed together into one bedroom, with some sleeping in bunk beds, a situation that violates France’s laws regarding the housing of seasonal workers. There was no bedsheets, pillows, or toilet paper.

“At the moment we have this crazy situation where we actually have better protection for animals than for some of these workers on our farms.”

Daniel Freund, German Green MEP

---

Sources: