Best practices against work exploitation in agriculture (Be-Aware)

The Milan Center has carried out research on the best practices inplemented in Italy as well as in Europe in tackling work exploitation  in agriculture

Presented in February 2017 together with the Minister for Agriculture in Milan and in May 2017 in Brussels to the President of the European Parliament, the final report was presented to the Chamber of Deputies (the Lower House of the Italian Parliament) in October of this year. Following a one and a half year research period, the Milan Center for Food Law and Policy drew up an initial survey of best practices, identifying thirty five cases which illustrated the different strategies applied at European level to counteract the phenomena of labor exploitation in agriculture

The meeting in Rome is aimed to be an opportunity to bring together scholars, experts and representatives of institutions and civil society organizations from national and international backgrounds, together with those key players representing international best practices

The project BeAware – Best Practices against Work Exploitation in Agriculture puts into perspective, with extensive data, the extent of the problem and some of the initiatives promoted at an Italian and European level to tackle work exploitation in agriculture. The aim of this study was to lay the foundations for the creation of an evaluation system that could provide all the necessary information for indentifying best practices, amongst those case studies put forward, in other words: those initiatives which have been able to address the problem better than others. The main common features will then be highlighted from which general recommendations can be drawn. A challenge that attempts to contextualize a definition,  before recognizing the extent of the problem:  the many forms of crimes and violations related to the exploitation of the workforce in agricultural and farming has made coordination – at European level- of  actions and policies against illegal recruitment extremely difficult. The term itself in Italian, widespread in the media and in common everyday language, refers to a precise form of exploitation, linked to illicit intermediation, not always a  dominant phenomenon in the Italian and European scenario.