Spanish strawberry farms look East as Morocco leaves workers stranded

Around 17,000, mostly female, Moroccan seasonal workers were supposed to come this year to the southern Spanish province of Huelva for the strawberry harvest. Only 7,200 of these so-called temporeras made it there after the borders with Morocco were closed on March 13 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But once the harvest season finished and their contracts expired, most of them have found themselves trapped as their home country kept its doors closed and refused to repatriate them.

“They are running out of money and, as time goes by they’re becoming more and more vulnerable,” Jose Maria Castellon, a member of the rights group APDHA, told DW.

Migrant support groups speak of a “humanitarian crisis.” The laborers’ contracts expired in mid-June, but since then only around a hundred women, who were sick or about to give birth, have been repatriated. Others have given birth during their stay in Spain, working until the day before, if not the very same day they went into labor. A midwife who assisted some of these births told DW that “these women were alone and unable to communicate.”

Spain’s southwestern province of Huelva produces up to 97% of Spanish strawberries, which later end up in supermarkets across Europe. Most of them are picked by female migrant workers from Morocco

Normally the companies that employ these seasonal workers provide them with accommodation during the harvest. Given the situation, the firms allowed them to stay and took on the costs.

Yet these women normally send almost all their earnings to their families in Morocco and keep “just enough do the groceries and buy their kids a present before returning,” said Castellon. As a result, they have ended up relying on the help of neighbors and NGOs to survive.

The dark side of Europe’s fruit trade

The agricultural model of Spain has been questioned for years because of the working and living conditions of its migrant workers.

Apart from seasonal pickers — mostly from Morocco, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria — hundreds of sub-Saharan migrants live year-round in shantytowns close to the fields. Last February, after a visit to the camps, the United Nations’ Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights said: “They live like animals. Their conditions are among the worst that I have seen in any part of the world.”

The living and working conditions of the seasonal workers are not ideal either. At the places where they stay, many don’t have proper ventilation, toilets or running water. Social distancing is a rare privilege. Up until now none of the Moroccan strawberry harvesters has tested positive for COVID-19. Yet outbreaks elsewhere in Spain amid groups of migrants in similar conditions have raised concerns.

Huelva has so far had few coronavirus cases in a country badly hit by the first wave of the pandemic. Given their inability to go home, some migrant workers moved to other provinces in the past weeks to work in other fields.

The COVID-19 pandemic has left thousands of Moroccan women stranded in Spain, and living in abject conditions

Last Wednesday (July 15), the Spanish and Moroccan governments finally announced an agreement to repatriate the seasonal workers, but only after weeks of uncertainty, since Morocco has until now refused to do so.

“If they had been professional football players, they would have been sent back home right away, but they’re poor women,” Alicia Navascues, a local human rights activist, told DW.

Now it is possible for the Moroccan workers to return by plane or by ship, but only from French and Italian ports. The harvesters say they cannot afford those tickets.

The regional government of Andalusia agreed to take over the task of testing these women. The repatriations of the first few hundred started this weekend, but local authorities can only perform 800 coronavirus tests per day. Without a negative test result Morocco will not let them go back home.

Diversification or a patch?

The diplomatic storm over the Moroccan female workers has upset many farmers in the sector, business sources told DW. They believe the authorities in the neighboring country might not be a trusted partner anymore.

Since the late 1990s, thousands of Moroccan seasonal workers have come every year for the strawberry harvest. Now farmers are looking for alternatives to keep their businesses running.

“We have asked the government to make it possible for us to hire seasonal workers from other European Union and non-EU countries,” Freshuelva, the association of strawberry producers in the province of Huelva, told DW.

“The goal is to diversity our workforce and prevent problems in their arrival and return, such as those that happened this year.” Those other countries, Freshuelva said, could be in Eastern Europe or Latin America.

• How coronavirus might change farming

  Factory farming on the out

  While scientists don’t yet know exactly how COVID-19 originated, recent pandemic virus threats such as swine flu and bird flu almost certainly evolved at pig and chicken factory farms. With a link already established between intensive animal agriculture and an increased pandemic risk, it might be the moment to rethink factory farming at its current scale.

• How coronavirus might change farming

  Meat industry exposed

  The pandemic has also cast a light on the poor conditions in the meat processing industry. Germany has seen several coronavirus outbreaks among meat factory employees, and has even put two districts in western Germany in quarantine after more than 1,550 workers at the Tönnies slaughterhouse were infected with the disease. Calls are growing for better regulations throughout the meat branch.

• How coronavirus might change farming

  Moving away from wildlife farming

  Experts believe the coronavirus likely came from wildlife sold at a wet market in Wuhan, China. In the wake of the pandemic, China clamped down on the wildlife trade, shutting down almost 20,000 wildlife farms. Some Chinese provinces are now offering government support to help wildlife farmers transition away from the practice, and switch to growing crops or raising pigs or chickens instead.

• How coronavirus might change farming

  A more resilient sector

  The pandemic has impacted our food supply chain. An industry evolved to feed a globalized world has been scaled back to the local level in some cases. From reduced access to animal fodder to shortages of labor, farmers are having to consider how to adapt to a new and uncertain future.

• How coronavirus might change farming

  Urban farming flourishes

  Forced to spend more time at home, increasing numbers of people have been trying their hand at growing their own food. This could be a positive development in the long run. With more than two-thirds of the world’s population projected to live in cities by 2050, urban farming will become more crucial – and it requires less fossil fuel for transport and less land than conventional agriculture.

• How coronavirus might change farming

  Giving land back to nature

  With our planet’s population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, there’s no escaping the fact that food production around the world needs to increase. While opening up more land was once seen as an obvious solution to this problem, a stronger focus on urban farming and concerns over the consequences of encroaching into nature could spark a rethink of how we use land.

• How coronavirus might change farming

  Switching to plant-based

  As awareness of the potential health costs of the meat market grows, China has witnessed an increasing interest in plant-based products. The West has already experienced a trend towards plant-based diets over the past few years, and that is likely to continue as consumers become more concerned over the origins of meat products.

• How coronavirus might change farming

  Increasing food security in developing countries

  The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to impact developing countries heavily – particularly in terms of food security. The UN has already warned of famine “of biblical proportions” as resources become scarcer. Alongside immediate aid, mitigating widespread famine in the long-term will require better land protection, more diversified crops and more support for smallholder farmers who are most at risk.

  Author: Ineke Mules

Interfresa, a regional strawberry business association, told DW that “we do not want to give up on Morocco, but want to diversify.” Yet it also said that this hiring can only happen in the framework of international agreements that have to be signed by the Spanish government. In addition, Interfresa said, “Latin America is thousands of kilometers away.” A handful of farmers told DW that they are now looking to Eastern Europe with hope.

The Spanish government did not reply to a request for comment.

For those who have been assisting the migrant workers, it is not a question of replacing one country for another.

“The coronavirus pandemic has shed light on the system’s inability to protect the pickers human rights and dignity,” Jose Maria Castellon said. “Changing their country of origin does not change the cause of the problems, it is just a patch.”

Alicia Navascues thinks “this hiring model is a modern form of slavery.” If working conditions were decent, she pointed out, then locals would be keen to take on these jobs, since the province has had a high unemployment rate in the past few years.

“This model of capitalistic exploitation does not work, not for these women,” she said. Yet for now it seems it will take more than a pandemic to change it.

Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/spanish-strawberry-farms-look-east-as-morocco-leaves-workers-stranded/a-54239756?maca=en-rss-en-bus-2091-xml-atom