Exploring migrants’ knowledge and skill in seasonal farm work: more than labouring bodies

Abstract

Migrant farmworkers dominate the horticultural workforce in many parts of the Minority (developed) World. The 'manual' work that they do-picking and packing fruits and vegetables, and pruning vines and trees-is widely designated unskilled. In policy, media, academic, activist and everyday discourses, hired farm work is framed as something anybody can do. We interrogate this notion with empirical evidence from the Sunraysia horticultural region of Australia. The region's grape and almond farms depend heavily on migrant workers. By-and-large, the farmers and farmworkers we spoke to pushed back against the unskilled tag. They asserted that farmworkers acquire knowledge and skills over time and that experienced farmworkers are valuable-their value being brought into sharp relief against accounts of inexperienced farmworkers' errors. Our interviewees provided rich insights into farmworkers' engagements with crops and the intricacies of picking and pruning well. Far from being bereft of knowledge and skills, they recognised that experienced farmworkers bring benefits. They improve productivity, product quality and ultimately profits. This is especially so when open communication channels exist across the farm hierarchy, when experienced farmworkers' insights are taken seriously by their employers. Our research is informed by organisational studies literature and scholarship on craft/ making. Like factory floor workers and artisans, experienced farmworkers bring accumulated knowledge and skills to their work, gained through repeat performance. They reflect on and adjust their activities in dialogue with their materials and the environment. Experienced farmworkers demonstrate care, dexterity and judgement. They are not unskilled, and they are more than labouring bodies.

Barriers to and enablers of sustainable practices: insights from ethnic minority migrants

“…The synthetic analysis involved coding of synthesised notes and outputs of individual sub-studies as opposed to coding anew the original transcripts produced by each sub-study. When coding, we identified which environmental practices the participants had brought with them; which of those practices they had retained; and the barriers and enablers as to why they had retained some practices but lost or adapted others (the complexity and richness of each in-depth analysis is included in other publications Head et al 2018;Kerr, Klocker, and Waitt 2016;Kerr, Klocker, and Waitt 2018;Klocker et al 2020;Klocker et al 2018;Nowroozipour 2017;Spaven 2016;Waitt 2018;Waitt, Kerr, and Klocker 2016;Waitt and Nowroozipour 2018;Waitt and Welland 2019;Welland 2015)). We focus on the sustainability topics of household water use, food growing and transport in this paper because they allow us to scale up multiple sub-studies.…”

Seeing the workers for the trees: exalted and devalued manual labour in the Pacific Northwest craft cider industry

“…Because craftspeople foreground their skilled manual labour, they depart from a dominant contemporary work culture that enshrines formal intellectual training over hands-on labour and reinforces the Cartesian mind/body rupture (Klocker et al 2020 ). Whereas mere ‘labour’ is seen as a de-individuated, substitutable input that can be poured into an economic engine, discussions of ‘craft’ assert that all labour is tied to unique expressions of human life, values, and aspirations (Meyfroidt et al 2019 ; Polanyi 1944 ).…”

“…While the labour of farmers and craft entrepreneurs is often portrayed through a romantic lens, the labour of hired workers is widely written off as a low-skill manual job that anyone could do (Weiler et al 2016 ). Policymakers have drawn on this ‘low-skill’ logic to downgrade employment and immigration conditions for farmworkers (Hagan et al 2015 ; Klocker et al 2020 ). Many migrant and immigrant farmworkers are themselves former, current, or aspiring farmers, which further complicates the skilled farmer/unskilled farmworker dichotomy (Binford 2013 ; Minkoff-Zern 2019 ).…”

“…Against dominant depictions of farm work as unskilled or low skill labour, some researchers have begun to liken it to a form of craft. Focusing on Australia, Klocker et al ( 2020 ) compare the tacit, embodied knowledge of farmworkers to the craft that artisans or factory workers hone through years of reflective practice. They illustrate how veteran farmworkers adapt their practices in conversation with the more-than-human ‘planty agency’ of crops (Brice 2014 ).…”

Editorial: Foreign seasonal migrants in agriculture and COVID-19

“…Seasonal farm work requires professionalism, and those engaged in it are not so-called unskilled workers. Klocker et al (2019) conceptualise this idea with four points. First, "manual" work is not unskilled, even when it seems to be occurring instinctively or unconsciously.…”