Riots are ugly events that expose even uglier truths. Reports of recent unrest by African immigrants in southern Italy have underscored the dirty little secret that, lo and behold, there’s racism in Italy. Lost in the condemnation of Italian xenophobia, however, is a less obvious but equally important discovery: Italy’s bucolic countryside — the heart of its pristine agrarian image — is sustained by foreign migrants living in, as one official put it, “subhuman conditions.” Those imported canned tomatoes that go into your classic tomato sauce obscure a world of hurt.
This is not what I want to hear when contemplating the land of slow food, ancient farm houses, rolling vineyards, and leisurely lunches over pasta, bruschetta, mozzarella, and fine wine. It’s not what I want to hear when savoring the near-spiritual identification between Italians and their legendary pastoral landscape, blessed with its inimitable air, soil, and produce. Something about “subhuman conditions” spoils the fun, dampening my enthusiasm to, as one Italian agritourismo outfit promotes, “see what the real Italy is like.”
Getting to know “the real Italy” — at least in terms of the country’s food and agriculture — means getting to know a migrant from Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, India, or, of course, Africa. Italy on the ground, Italy down in the dirt, is a multinational scrum, a place where an exploited foreigner is more likely to have picked your succulent olives than a perennially employed, well-compensated Italian. Only 5 percent of the Italian natives work in agriculture. Foreign migrants are 60 percent of the seasonal labor force.
Why is this? It’s often said that Italians won’t deign to pick their own produce. I’m not terribly swayed by such gross generalizations. But still, when an internal report by the retailer Coop Italia explains, “Italians do not accept jobs picking tomatoes for industrial use,” you have to wonder. Furthermore, Italy’s unemployed are likely to see their unemployment benefits reduced if they take on seasonal and low-paying agricultural work — which is to say they’re better off economically on the dole. The most pervasive answer, though, takes us back to Econ 101: foreign migrants are cheaper.
Unfortunately, Econ 101 often by-passes Ethics 101. All reports — not to mention the riots themselves — suggest that the abuse migrants endure is hellish. According to a 2005 study, 50 percent of the Africans working in Italy are illegal, 50 percent live without running water, 40 percent live in abandoned buildings, and 75 percent contract a chronic disease due their living conditions. They’re paid about 20 bucks a day for 12 hours of work. And so on.
Seeking insight from the ethical foodie perspective on this troubling culinary paradox, I turned to Slow Food International, the go-to Italian-based advocacy group that highlights fair, local, and fresh food. The organization’s stated mission is to counter “people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes, and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.” There’s not a word, however, about the riots. Instead, there are interesting pieces on a heritage livestock facility, how eating locally will curb obesity, and a video of Slow Food’s founder visiting the Sydney opera house.
Perhaps it’s unfair to expect an organization dedicated to eating well to dissect an incredibly complex and distressing labor arrangement. Food is fiction, after all, and there are many advantages to keep telling beautiful stories that brighten our day by enriching our palette. Plus, the moment we might start thinking about the culinary implications of a riot, things can become pretty tasteless.
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@Cackalacka I’d say this is different from America because of the pervasive stereotypes. I guess it’s just a difference in expectations. Italian cuisine presents to many people a powerful image of a slow food movement where the food grown from the grown up to where it reaches the chefs and the final customer are all a “real” process, instead of the rote industrialization and often unethical infrastructure that is pretty common in a lot of countries, i.e. the more infamous fast food exploits of supersized America.
This is a bit of a shock, but maybe not altogether that surprising in the world of today.
It certainly isn’t different from us. Conservative ideology tries to play it both ways; demonize the immigrants to keep them as an underclass, at the same time don’t punish those who hire them. Get rid of the jobs, and the immigrants will not come.
Well written. And correct.
Here in Piemonte, Italy’s premier wine producing region, migrants comprise the overwhelming majority of the harvesting workforce. Conditions range from human to appalling, and pay from acceptable to virtually non-existent. The largest work pool in this region comes from Morocco, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania.
Small wineries that lack the technological acumen to sell products in the international marketplace could never pay legal Italian help. The larger wineries? Econ 101, as Mr. Mc Williams says.
The roots of Italian xenophobia are a matter of opinion. Prior to the social seismic event which culminated in the fall of Communism, Italy was not a country to which people immigrated . It was a country FROM which people immigrated, people like my grandparents, and the millions of others who landed in Buenos Aires, New York, Frankfurt. Italy has political strife, economic strife, and social strife. Italians have so much to cope with – stagnant wages against rising prices, a revolving door government, multiple families living under one roof (for practical reasons, not for romantic ones, as we Americans might want to believe), corruption.
The thought of Italians, stretched to their limits, opening their arms to embrace the floods from Eastern Europe and Africa, is pretty unrealistic. There is no immigrant culture here to learn from. Italians are the maters of improvisation, and they are having to figure this out as they go. I don’t really think Italians start out hating foreign migration. They simply have absolutely no experience with it, no base for it, and no financial means to support it. That ‘s not a good place to start.
Does not always make for storybook endings that we can toast with a glass of Barolo and a plate of pasta with white truffles. Speriamo bene, we hope for good, as Italians always say.
You might be a bit premature in your dissing of Slow Food International……this is an issue that they must deal with. But….this is Italy….it might take a while……
So reality does not match marketing? You can learn a lot by reading the NYT.
good call cackalacka- the solution is unions- ironically, italy is likely more pro-union than we are- either way, exposure is good to pressure the multinationals to be ethical and provide the workers that line their pockets with cash, a living wage
I second what Cackalacka said. It would be somewhat satisfying to see more of this exposed so that we can take a more holistic approach to creating fair food economics.
I’ve always wondered why urban farming remains so economically challenging in our country (often due to “higher and better uses” of the land), and factory farming reaps major government subsidies to remain profitable, when seemingly more “livable” countries with generally more expensive real estate can continue producing such bountiful crops. Not only do they continue to produce, but at a cost that still allows them to process, package, and ship the goods to us across the world at an affordable price. Surely government subsidies aren’t the entire stabilizing force, especially with such a small number of the populace employed in the agriculture industry…..
We know too well in the U.S. that Latin American immigrants continue to comprise a majority of our field workers, and they are often undocumented and treated poorly. Why would it be any different in Europe, where they can attract an even larger labor pool of starving immigrants from unstable/unfavorable economies nearby?
If you were truly “seeking insight,” from Slow Food, I think you would have done more than surf the website. Maybe pick-up the phone and call someone? Or even email?
Or, to be more honest about your motives, you could have written, “seeking to portray ‘eco-foodies’ as as a silly out-of-touch bunch, I took a cursory glance at the Slow Food web site and found the perfect opportunity!”