Bitter harvest

From The Guardian - The Dark Side Of The Christmas Orange Harvest

Every morning before dawn, undocumented migrants from Africa and eastern Europe queue by the road for work on the orange, clementine and olive harvests around the small town of Rosarno in Calabria, southern Italy.


A brutal pecking order operates, with workers grouping themselves by nationality. Those from the Maghreb with paler skins tend to get chosen first, black Africans last.

Women from eastern Europe wait for work on the opposite side of the road to the men. Most are from Bulgaria and Romania.


They are taken to work on farms or factories where the fruit is packed, juiced or prepared for candied peel to be exported to northern Europe. Some of the women have arrived with children.


Just outside Rosarno, orange and olive groves stretch from the coast to the ruggedAspromante mountains.


The harvest this year is a good one but prices have fallen below the cost of production and the EC has frozen subsidy payments whilst it investigates allegations of fraudulant claims involving millions of Euros.