Fruit production and exploited labor in northern Italy: Redefining urban responsibility toward the agrarian ground

Abstract

Immigrants play a crucial role in the development of capital-intensive, industrialized agriculture and often find themselves living in derelict, stigmatized neighborhoods where they become not only objects of fear and exclusion but also objects of racketeering, exploitation, and profit-making dynamics. Global trends and migration flows trigger new concerns among policymakers who realize that food production is not only a rural issue. Discussing the Italian case of the Saluzzo Fruit District and the Prima Accoglienza Stagionali (PAS, First Reception of Seasonal Workers) project, this contribution focuses on the role that cities as institutional complexes can have in preventing illegal recruitment and exploitation of labor in agriculture as well as improving the living conditions of migrant field hands through the activation of urban–rural synergies for multifactor and multilevel cooperation. Results offer an overview of the potentiality of the abandonment of an emergency approach limited to the sole provision of shelters to migrant workers for adopting a more structured and holistic approach to territorial planning.