International Labour Migration and Food Production in Rural Europe: A Review of the Evidence

Abstract

Since Hoggart and Mendoza's article on 'African immigrant workers in Spanish agriculture' in Sociologia Ruralis in 1999 there has been a proliferation of interest in labour migration to/in rural Europe. It is now clear that the rural realm has been, and is being, transformed by immigration, and that low-wage migrant workers in the food production industry are playing a particularly prominent role in this transformation. This article takes stock of the literature and identifies seven key issues associated with low-wage labour migration, contemporary food production, and rural change. Most notably, since the 1990s, there has been growing demand for migrants in the segmented, and sometimes exploitative, labour markets of the European food production industries. This demand has been met across a variety of contexts, with states and labour market intermediaries playing a largely supportive role. However, migrants' integration into rural communities has often been problematic, with the emphasis being on the need for, rather than needs of, low-wage migrant workers.

Migrant labour as space: Rhythmanalysing the agri-food industry

“…In this way, conceptualising migrant labour as trialectic space enables us to study the full range of 'kakorythmic' contradictions and eurythmic synergies across structures, work and rest patterns in the agri-food industry, accounting for the mundane, and everyday experiences of migrants. It also enables us to account for nuances in migrant narratives, since the rhythms of exploitation and subordination we identify in line with existing studies (Rye and Scott, 2018;Greer, 2016) are only detected in relation to cooccurring rhythms of opportunity, rest and even enjoyment.…”

“…In such circumstances, issues of exclusion, lack of fairness and gender equality (Maranto and Griffin, 2011;Boogaard and Roggeband, 2010) do exist, yet migrant and marginalised groups are not passive 'victims' but actively struggle for 'voice' and 'visibility' (Simpson and Lewis, 2005). Furthermore, while entrepreneurial migrants employ and manage other migrant workers and this, at times, reproduces existing inequalities (Rye and Scott, 2018), this can also provide labour market access and skill development for new and/or unskilled migrants (Tsui-Auch, 2005;Essers and Benschop, 2007).…”

“…These considerations have made the continued study of migrant workers, as well as the opportunities and challenges arising from their labour market position, necessary (Rye and Scott, 2018;Hoggart and Mendoza, 1999;Kasimis et al, 2010).…”

From Family to Domestic and Global Labour? A Decade of Proletarisation of Labour in the Norwegian Horticulture Industry

“…By 2010, workers from aboard, migrant 4 labour, which had been only sporadically present until as late as the 1980s (Møller and Jensen 1999), accounted for about 41.8% of total labour input in the Norwegian horticulture industry. Parallel processes took place in other Western European countries (see, for instance, Gertel and Sippel 2014, Corrado et al 2017, Rye and Scott 2018).…”

“…Some rough estimatesexact numbers are difficult if not impossible to establishsuggest that 90% of Greece's and 37% of Italy's agricultural workers are now international migrants (see Corrado et al's 2017: 10-11 review). Similarly, the Spanish and French horticulture industries have long been dependent on foreign labour (Gertel and Sippel 2014).More lately, the Northern European horticulture industries have also turned to migrant labour (seeRye and Scott 2018). A novel trend is the influx of third country immigrant workers to the agricultural industries in the eastern parts of Europe.…”