Description
There is an often-overlooked aspect of labour migration to Europe: the settlement patterns of African migrant farm labour in remote rural areas. Focusing on Ghanaian rural youth migrant farm labour, this study contests their categorization in academic and policy circles, as illegal, irregular, and unskilled workers.
First, this Paper studies the correlation between the establishment of a liberalized global tomato agri–food sector and the emergence of international farm labour migrants originating from rural Middle Belt Ghana and employed in rural Southern Italy.
Second, it interrogates the choice of rural Southern Italy as a migration destination, by examining the configuration of actors and roles in both rural origin and host areas, while drawing out the complex challenges actors present to the transnational governance of international farm labour migration across the Mediterranean into Europe.
Third, it examines the often marginalized yet influential contributions of Ghanaian migrant farmworkers in the development of sustainable agri–food systems in the host and origin rural farming communities, in spite of their exclusion and precarity in Italy.
Relying on primary data collected over 8–months in 2021/22 in Ghana and Italy, and with the support of relevant food systems and migration concepts, this Paper offers a comprehensive analysis of international rural–to–rural farm labour migration, aimed at broadening the scope of academic investigation of African migration to Europe, beyond refugee migration.
Keywords: ∙ international migration ∙ farm labour ∙ rural ∙ tomato agriculture ∙ sustainable food system ∙ globalization ∙ Ghana ∙ Italy
