Agricultural workers include those that work on farms and plantations and in primary processing facilities for food and fibre production. They work for cash and/or in-kind payments and do not own or rent the land or equipment used in their work. They include permanent/full-time, seasonal, temporary/ casual, migrant, indigenous and piece-rate workers (those paid per unit of work) and
small farmers who often undertake paid agricultural employment to supplement their farm incomes.

Agricultural workers amount to 450 million, and represent 40 percent of the world's agricultural work force, and the number is increasing in most regions of the world. Women waged agriculture workers account for 20-30 percent of the waged workforce, rising to 40 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and their numbers too are increasing in most regions (ILO, FAO, IUF, 2007). Agricultural workers are among the poorest and most food insecure groups: in many countries, more than 60 percent of them live in poverty. Furthermore, most rural and agricultural employment is based on informal arrangements, in the sense that workers are not recognised or protected under legal and regulatory frameworks.

Rural workers suffer high rates of poverty, food insecurity, death, injury and illness. They are also often denied basic human rights. Mainly due to the informal character of agricultural production, but also to other factors such as incomplete markets, asymmetry of information, high transaction costs, and imperfect functioning of complementary markets (especially land and credit), rural labour is not homogeneous and comes with a wide range of contractual arrangements and employment relationships. It is important to recognise the variety of employment relationships and conditions of rural workers because, while they suffer the highest incidence of poverty and vulnerability, the lack of homogeneity in the sector and the predominance of informality are the main causes for their low level of organization and unionization. This is, in turn, one of the determinants of their continued invisibility with policy-makers and institutions at micro and macro level: civil society groups working directly with agricultural workers continue to enjoy little support for strengthening their capacity and improving their livelihoods, if compared with farmers' groups.

Rural workers and their trade unions play an important role in poverty reduction and in agricultural and rural development is not often recognised, while their contribution to making food production and food security sustainable, safe and healthy is virtually untapped. There are many mechanisms through which their contribution can become visible, including the implementation of sustainable practices, the maintenance of food safety requirements and the maintenance of a safe, healthy and environmentally sound workplace.

There is a history of collaboration between FAO and agricultural workers' organizations, with highest points in the 1980s and early 1990s. In the past few years FAO has revived collaboration with the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) and its affiliates, focusing on institutional capacity building of agricultural workers' organizations and its affiliates. It started through the Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) Initiative and continued in the framework of the FAO-ILO Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

In ILO's tripartite structure workers are represented through their organizations together with governments and employers' organizations. Within the ILO, the Bureau for Workers’ Activities (ACTRAV) department works directly with workers and their organizations including workers engaged in agriculture. In September 2003, the International Workers’ Symposium on Decent Work in Agriculture called on the ILO to “… strengthen collaboration with the FAO on issues of mutual concern: (1) the cause and effect of global price declines in commodities and their impact on rural employment and small-scale producer livelihoods; (2) sustainable agriculture and rural development (SARD) and the involvement of trade unions and workers’ organizations in implementation of the SARD initiative; (3) food security; (4) capacity building and training of trade union and cooperative leaders in participatory agricultural policy formulation; and (5) awareness raising on health and safety issues with a special focus on HIV/AIDS prevention among rural youth.

Contacts

FAO Focal Point: Peter Wobst, ESWD (Peter.Wobst@fao.org)

ILO Focal Point: Lene Olsen, ACTRAV (olsen@ilo.org)