Over the last three decades there has been a rapid expansion of intensive production of fresh fruit and vegetables in the Mediterranean regions of south and west Europe. Much of this depends on migrating workers for seasonal labour, including from Eastern Europe, North Africa and Latin America. This book is the first to address global agro-migration complexes across the region.

It is argued that both intensive agricultural production and related working conditions are highly dynamic. Regional patterns have developed from small-scale family farming to become an industrialized part of the global agri-food system, which increasingly depends on seasonal labour. Simultaneously, consumer demand for year-round supply has caused relocations of the industry within Europe; areas of intensive greenhouse production have moved further south and even into North Africa. The authors investigate this Mediterranean agri-food system that transcends borders and is largely constituted by invisible seasonal work. By revealing the story of food commodities loaded with implications of private profit seeking, exploitation, exclusion and multiple insecurities, the book unmasks the hidden costs of fresh food provisioning.

Three case study areas are considered in detail: the French region of Provence, a traditional centre of fresh fruit and vegetable cultivation; the Spanish Almeria region where intensive production has, accelerated dramatically since the 1970s; and Morocco where counter-seasonal production has recently been expanding. The book also includes commentaries that refer to complemetary insights on US-Mexico, Philippines-Canada and South Pacific mobilities.

About the Author

Joerg Gertel is Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Leipzig, Germany.

Sarah Ruth Sippel is a geographer and Senior Researcher at the Centre for Area Studies, University of Leipzig, Germany.

Reviews

"Seasonal Workers in Mediterranean Agriculture looks behind the facade of a modern agro-food industry that links not just producing regions in France, Spain and Morocco but sources of migratory labor from North Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America without which the entire system would yield neither fresh produce nor profit. This excellent monograph, based on exceptionally rich historical and ethnographic case studies, exposures the ugly underbelly and the radical precarity of a contemporary industrial agriculture operating in the long shadow of economic and social crisis. The authors provide a path-breaking and yet unsettling account of the social life of what passes as fresh and sustainable produce. A tour de force." - Michael Watts, Professor of Geography, Class of 1963 Chair, University of California, Berkeley, USA, author of Silent Violence: Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria and co-editor of books such as Globalizing Food: Agrarian Questions and Global Restructuring, Liberation Ecologies, Violent Environments, and Living under Contract.

"Proof yet again there is no such thing as a free, or even cheap, lunch! Seasonal Workers in Mediterranean Agriculture reminds us that what appear as externalized costs for consumers are deeply and literally internalized for the millions who toil so we can eat fresh. It is a sophisticated book with many important take-home messages, one of which being that we can't afford to keep eating this way." - Michael Carolan, Professor and Chair of Sociology at Colorado State University, USA and author of such books as The Real Cost of Cheap Food, Reclaiming Food Security, and Cheaponomics: The High Cost of Low Prices.

"Focusing upon Mediterranean agriculture, but drawing upon case studies from throughout the world, this collection offers a fascinating and detailed account of contemporary agrarian change. Contributors provide extensive evidence about how the burgeoning trade in fresh fruit and vegetables has produced a number of hidden costs - including the exploitation of foreign workers as companies seek ways of reducing labor costs, and environmental degradation as a more industrial form of agriculture takes hold. The book demonstrates that while 'eating fresh' might engender visions of happy and healthy consumers, a more nuanced examination of the spatio-temporal dynamics of agri-food globalization reveals an underside of social disadvantage and ecological destruction. In presenting an up-to-date and vivid account of social relations in the fresh fruit and vegetable trade, this book is a 'must read' for all scholars desiring a critical understanding of current global food provisioning." - Geoffrey Lawrence, Professor of Sociology, University of Queensland, Australia and President, International Rural Sociology Association.

Book Information
ISBN 9781138097193
Author Joerg Gertel
Format Paperback
Page Count 294
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 580g