Opinion of the European Committee of the Regions – Fair working conditions in agriculture: the local and regional perspective
Date: 2024-11-20
Institutions: Commission for Natural Resources, European Committee of the Regions
Subjects: common agricultural policy, conditionality mechanism, equal treatment, farmer, labour law, migrant worker, moonlighting, seasonal employment, seasonal worker, working conditions








C_202500283EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2025/283


24.1.2025






Opinion of the European Committee of the Regions – Fair working conditions in agriculture: the local and regional perspective
(C/2025/283)








Rapporteur
: Karine GLOANEC-MAURIN (FR/PES), Deputy mayor delegate of the new commune of Couëtron-au-Perche





POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS (CoR),








1.


points out that the model of the family farm, often championed by professional agricultural organisations and enshrined in agricultural policies in western Europe in the second half of the 20th century, has been significantly weakened. In 2020, non-family-run businesses managed 39 % of the land used for European agricultural production and even managed 45 % of livestock units in the EU;












2.


notes that agricultural work is increasingly based on new strategies for workers: association, outsourcing and integration. The EU’s regular agricultural labour force was estimated at 17 million people in 2020 (1). A European Commission foresight study suggests that the agricultural workforce will fall to 7,7 million workers in 2030, with an annual decrease of 2 % between now and 2030, which will only partly be offset by the influx of migrant workers;












3.


stresses that farm employees are now carrying out an increasing share of the work on ever bigger farms and that, as time goes on, they are having to play an increasingly large role in the share of the work carried out on European farms;












4.


highlights an increase in labour shortages in the agricultural sector. An OECD study (2) shows that this problem is particularly acute in Belgium, Greece, Ireland and Poland; stresses that a level playing field for all agricultural businesses is necessary to effectively address labour shortages in the agricultural sector.












5.


believes that a transition towards the ecological sustainability of agriculture must go hand in hand with social justice and that Green Deal commitments must be complemented by commitments to a Social Deal;





Strengthening the social conditionality of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)









6.


takes note of the specific monitoring and evaluation systems set up by the European Commission to assess the effectiveness of social conditionality in 2027 and emphasises the importance of long-term impact assessments to evaluate the broader impact of social conditionality on the agricultural sector and rural areas; calls for this evaluation to take this opinion into account;












7.


notes that the establishment of ‘social conditionality’ for aid under the CAP did not go hand in hand with strengthening already existing EU legislation on working conditions, but that it does entail an additional administrative burden for farmers and a greater bureaucratic burden for the administrations that will have to monitor compliance with social conditionality;












8.


points out that current EU legislation allows the Member States to decide on the scope of penalties for infringements, in line with their existing national control systems for labour and social rules. This enables the Member States to take a more tailored approach to social conditionality in order to take into consideration the different agricultural contexts across the EU; notes, however, that this freedom can lead to different working conditions for employees, resulting from different levels of penalties and control, which in turn can lead to distortions of competition on the market;












9.


suggests that the European Commission could work with the European social partners to undertake a review of the system for coordinated penalties across the EU, in order to achieve greater harmonisation;












10.


recommends clarifying responsibilities in dealing with breaches of the standards introduced by social conditionality when workers are recruited by intermediaries;












11.


notes that the European Commission recognises the weaknesses of social conditionality under the CAP as this new instrument does not cover some of the sectors in which violations of workers' rights are most frequent. Indeed, the mechanism of social conditionality, under which the EU Member States can suspend direct payments to farms which do not meet the required standards, does not apply to many agricultural businesses in the fruit or vegetable sectors.












12.


recommends, therefore, that action be taken to ensure that the aims of social conditionality can be achieved across all agricultural sectors in order to limit distortions of competition between regions linked to different labour costs;












13.


suggests developing instruments to support agricultural employers in providing decent housing conditions for agricultural workers; recommends in particular that local and regional authorities, together with the competent labour authorities, carry out ex ante evaluations of the housing need in the sector;












14.


advocates the creation of independent bodies to which agricultural workers can submit anonymous complaints about non-compliance with labour law;












15.


calls for social conditionality to be accompanied at a minimum by dissemination of the guide drawn up by the European Labour Authority (3) to all seasonal workers in order to inform agricultural workers of their rights and by the provision of training programmes on occupational health and safety in a way that is appropriate for the agricultural holding in question;












16.


recommends actively involving a wide range of stakeholders in the evaluation and in revising and adapting the social conditionality framework;





Support for farmers in implementing social conditionality









17.


encourages the Member States to use the EAFRD knowledge transfer and information measure to train farmers in their responsibilities as employers;












18.


recommends that Member States include social objectives in CAP market interventions in the form of incentives for producer groups (Articles 46(k) and 47(1)(a)(xiii) and (b) for fruit and vegetables and Articles 57(c) and 58(f) for the wine sector of Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 (4)) as a complement to social conditionality for sectors where this has little impact;












19.


calls on local and regional authorities to use EAFRD support, and in particular the LEADER programme, to respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by the recent flow of migrants and refugees into the EU, which can help to partly address the labour shortage in the agricultural sector;












20.


suggests setting up a system of additional support for farms that guarantee a higher level of compliance with social, working and employment conditions, in particular for specific issues relating to the working conditions of women, vulnerable groups of workers or the improvement of the wage situation. The aim is to encourage the implementation of social conditions that are better than the minimum standards, as is already the case under environmental conditionality;












21.


supports the introduction and further promotion of sectors that ensure good working conditions for agricultural workers through a label distinguishing fair employers within a sector (5) or through certification (6) (e.g. Global GAP GRASP certification or SA8000 certification);





Local and regional dimension









22.


notes that the presence of migrant workers in rural areas creates specific challenges and opportunities for non-EU nationals and host communities;












23.


stresses that rural communities are often not adequately prepared to host migrant workers, with local authorities in many cases operating with limited capacity in terms of resources and infrastructure. This situation can make it very hard to manage the influx of migrants and can also lead to negative attitudes at local level, especially in areas with a stagnant economy where migrant labour can be perceived as competing with the local workforce;












24.


points out that the illegal exploitation of seasonal workers in certain production areas may lead to distortions of competition with regions that apply employment regulations for such workers;












25.


notes that integrating migrants in those rural areas that have the administrative and financial capacity, with public support, can have a positive impact by revitalising these areas. The presence of migrant workers in rural areas can also help to compensate for ageing populations, prevent rural depopulation and encourage investment to develop public services to enable these agricultural workers to move there; the revitalisation of rural areas should therefore encourage long-term investments in rural areas, better infrastructure, well connected and accessible transport, quality services and business opportunities, as well as decent labour conditions;












26.


proposes, therefore, promoting and recognising regional sectors that respect all the rights of migrant agricultural workers and fostering a sustainable agri-food system;





Occupational health and safety policies









27.


stresses that, according to various studies (7), agricultural workers have much higher rates of accidents, fatal injuries and poisoning by plant protection products than other socio-professional groups and workers;












28.


underlines the importance of addressing the dangers posed by hazardous substances such as pesticides and plant protection products, which significantly contribute to poisoning and long-term health risks for agricultural workers if handled incorrectly. This highlights the need for enhanced training and a transition towards sustainable farming practices to protect workers’ health;












29.


points out that, according to various studies (8), migrant workers face specific health and safety risks, as well as a higher accident rate than local workers (often increased by a lack of appropriate training, language skills and knowledge of the specific features of the area in question and its climatic conditions);












30.


underlines the importance of implementing comprehensive health and well-being programmes for agricultural workers. These programmes should include access to mental health support, regular health check-ups and preventive care to address the physical and psychological challenges faced by workers. Promoting overall well-being contributes to a healthier workforce and improves productivity and job satisfaction;












31.


emphasises that, according to a Eurostat study (9), between 2007 and 2017 an average of more than 500 deaths per year were recorded in the agricultural and forestry sector as well as more than 150 000 non-fatal accidents in the EU. More recent Eurostat data show that the fatal and non-fatal accident rate is higher in the agricultural sector than in all other sectors (10);












32.


underlines that, according to a study by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (11), the high prevalence of musculoskeletal problems among agricultural workers, particularly neck, upper back, lower back and knee problems, highlights the urgent need for ergonomic measures to improve working conditions and reduce exposure to musculoskeletal risks;












33.


points out that, in some cases, self-employed farmers are not covered or are only partially covered by EU and national occupational health and safety legislation, which may pose unique challenges for them in accessing resources such as training and certain other benefits; they must also be at the heart of occupational health and safety concerns in the agricultural and forestry sectors;












34.


calls on the Member States to adopt the International Labour Organization’s Safety and Health in Agriculture Recommendation (12) (No 192) and the Council recommendation of 18 February 2003 (13) concerning the improvement of the protection of the health and safety at work of self-employed workers;












35.


recommends looking very carefully at all the derogations from existing EU legislation on working time and working conditions in the agricultural sector, in particular in view of rising temperatures;












36.


welcomes the fact that the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work has published a guide on managing high temperatures at work (14) and encourages all relevant stakeholders to implement the measures recommended;












37.


recognises the efforts already undertaken by many EU Member States, which have labour inspectorates that monitor working conditions in various sectors, including agriculture, and acknowledges the multitude of challenges they face in terms of limited resources; recommends that the European Commission facilitate the exchange of best practices in this area and that all relevant stakeholders follow the guidelines proposed by the International Labour Organization in March 2024 (15);












38.


encourages the Member States and regions to make greater use of Article 15 of Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013 (16)under the second pillar of the CAP for training and advice on occupational safety standards or farm safety standards and to provide for specific measures to address the situation and needs of migrant workers;












39.


stresses the importance of initiatives on current health and safety training for agricultural workers and workers’ representatives and supports programmes which provide general information on occupational safety and labour conditions and empower farmers and agricultural workers to establish an occupational safety culture, which would contribute to an overall resilient and efficient sector;












40.


recommends including all relevant workers and stakeholders in the development of training programmes to ensure that these programmes are culturally, linguistically and pedagogically appropriate, which would better reflect the realities of the workplace in question;












41.


stresses, moreover, that it is essential to ensure that existing safety regulations are complied with, in order to avoid distortion of competition. While in some Member States there are derogations for the agricultural sector that exempt it from the occupational safety rules applied in other sectors due to the inherently different nature of the work and in order to accommodate the specific needs and challenges of the sector, these derogations must not compromise the safety and health of workers, nor should they lead to substandard working conditions;












42.


urges the Member States to implement measures at local, regional and national level to empower migrant workers in the agricultural sector to access health and social services independently;












43.


calls for access to healthcare for migrant workers to be inclusive and suited to their needs. Administrative and language barriers need to be removed and it must be ensured that workers can access healthcare without fear of reprisals or dismissal on medical grounds; however, while the CAP’s social conditionality can encourage adherence to social and labour rights, access to healthcare is governed by national level policies;





Agricultural workers’ rights









44.


stresses the need to combat discrimination against workers from non-EU countries, paying particular attention to working conditions, freedom of association and affiliation, social security benefits and family allowances;












45.


points out that, even though female farmers have gradually gained recognition on their farms through the introduction of new statuses over the years, there are still female farmers without a status, and too many of them are still not sufficiently informed about the various statuses possible and the legal and social protection they offer;












46.


deems it crucial to better protect women’s rights in the agricultural sector, regardless of their status, and promote a gender-sensitive approach in this sector. Notes that, according to a 2018 European Parliament study, exploitation and abuse appear to be exacerbated in the case of seasonal workers (17);












47.


emphasises that agricultural trade unions must better represent and protect agricultural workers to improve their working conditions;












48.


recommends establishing permanent alliances with minority trade unions and local organisations to address the specific challenges faced by migrant workers in the agricultural sector;












49.


stresses the need, therefore, to facilitate the appointment of farm staff representatives through fair, democratic and culturally appropriate trade union elections, ensuring the inclusion of migrant farm workers, where appropriate, and avoiding the over-representation of family members or trusted workers. It is also important to provide training on workers’ rights and ensure access to a regularly updated database on these rights by setting up trade union advisory services for migrant and mobile workers;












50.


emphasises that there are specific examples of spaces providing support with a view to consistently including foreigners’ access to rights in reception policies. These must become widespread throughout the EU, by making use of the LEADER programme (18) in particular;





Agricultural workforce and migration









51.


points out that, according to figures from the Administrative Commission for the Coordination of Social Security Systems (19), posted work, introduced by Directive 96/71/EC (20), has significantly increased in all EU countries, with the number of posted workers across all sectors increasing from less than 500 000 in 2004 to almost 3 million in 2018;












52.


stresses that, by separating labour market tax and social rules from their place of origin, posting can sometimes lead to ‘social dumping’ practices, exploiting loopholes in EU legislation and leading to working conditions that undermine human dignity;












53.


notes that posted work tends to offer less social security protection and has a high work intensity, characterised by long days and performance requirements;












54.


emphasises that other forms of employment in agriculture, such as employers’ groups and using the status of self-employed worker, are contributing to the general move towards job insecurity (21). Employers’ groups increase work intensity and lead to individualised employment relationships, which are both major factors in work unsustainability;












55.


recommends that all EU Member States sign, ratify and implement the International Convention on Migrant Workers and the International Labour Organization’s Safety and Health in Agriculture Convention (No 184);












56.


stresses that many workers in the agricultural sector are undocumented migrants, which jeopardises their access to mechanisms for protecting their fundamental rights; it is therefore important to ensure that all migrant and seasonal workers in the sector have an appropriate legal status;












57.


points out that the Council of Europe mentions in its report on agriculture and illegal employment in Europe (22) that migrants working in the agricultural sector in a number of European countries are victims of ‘exploitation’;












58.


considers it important, in view of the abuses that certain temporary employment companies have been convicted of regarding non-compliance with labour law or abuse of the self-employed status, for the EU’s social partners in the sector to review working conditions in subcontracting chains;












59.


calls for the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work and the European Labour Authority to coordinate their monitoring of the employment conditions of seasonal workers and to enhance existing tools, such as the guide to seasonal workers’ rights, taking into account previous experiences, such as the US’s National Agricultural Workers Survey, which covers both documented and undocumented workers;












60.


suggests making the investment needed to obtain representative data on agricultural workers at EU level by launching a call through Horizon Europe projects in order to properly document the scale and nature of working conditions and better guide policy design and implementation;












61.


proposes putting in place a complaints mechanism at EU level, based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, that is reliable and accessible and protects against reprisals, ensuring transparency, fairness and effective cooperation between stakeholders.






Brussels, 20 November 2024.


The President


of the European Committee of the Regions

Vasco ALVES CORDEIRO
               





(1)  
            Eurostat – Farmers and the agricultural labour force. Data extracted in November 2022.


(2)  
            
Labour and skills shortages in the agro-food sector, January 2023.


(3)  Rights for All Seasons – Your guide to fair seasonal work: https://www.ela.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2023-10/your_guide_to_fair_seasonal_work_leaflet_EN.pdf.

(4)  Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 2 December 2021 establishing rules on support for strategic plans to be drawn up by Member States under the common agricultural policy (CAP Strategic Plans) and financed by the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and repealing Regulations (EU) No 1305/2013 and (EU) No 1307/2013 (OJ L 435, 6.12.2021, p. 1).

(5)  A label that distinguishes fair employers in the mushroom industry – Stichting Fair Produce Netherlands – was created in 2011 by CNV Vakmensen, FNV, GroentenFruit Huis and LTO-Nederland. The Fair Produce label is awarded to producers, retailers and intermediary agencies in the mushroom sector if their workers receive a fair wage and have good working conditions and decent housing.

(6)  Since January 2018, the multinational company Princes (which processes 300 000 tonnes of raw tomatoes annually in its Foggia plant) has committed to ensuring that 100 % of its suppliers of locally sourced tomatoes are certified for their ethical work.

(7)  
            Klingelschmidt, Justine, et al. Suicide among Agricultural, Forestry, and Fishery Workers: A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis, Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, vol. 44, n 1, 2018, pp. 3–15.
Barbosa Junior M., Sokulski C.C., Salvador R., Pinheiro E., De Francisco A.C., Trojan F. What kills the agricultural worker? A systematic review on suicide. Rural and Remote Health 2021; 21: 6067.


(8)  
            
Occupational Fatalities among International Migrant Workers, 2021, International Organization for Migration (IOM); 
Migrant workers occupational health research: an OMEGA-NET working group position paper, 2021.


(9)  
            Review on the future of Agriculture and Occupational Safety and Health, report from the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), 2020.

(10)  Eurostat fatal and non-fatal work accident data from the data collection European Statistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW) are available here: Fatal work accidents: Fatal Accidents at work by NACE Rev. 2 activity [hsw_n2_02__custom_13034212] (see e.g. column NACE RE rows for sectors A01 and A02); Non-fatal work accidents: Non-fatal saccidents at work by NACE Rev. 2 activity and sex [hsw_n2_01__custom_13034377] (see e.g. column NACE RE rows for sectors A01 and A02).

(11)  
            Risk assessment of upper limb musculoskeletal disorders in agriculture: compared experiences. https://osha.europa.eu/sites/default/files/Risk_assessment_upper_limbs_agriculture_INAIL.pdf.

(12)  
            https://normlex.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:312530.


(13)  Council recommendation of 18 February 2003 concerning the improvement of the protection of the health and safety at work of self-employed workers (OJ L 53, 28.2.2003, p. 45; ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reco/2003/134/oj).

(14)  
            https://osha.europa.eu/sites/default/files/Heat-at-work-Guidance-for-workplaces_EN.pdf.

(15)  
            
Guidelines for reinforcing the role of labour inspectors in addressing undeclared work
.

(16)  Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005 (OJ L 347, 20.12.2013, p. 487).

(17)  The vulnerability to exploitation of women migrant workers in agriculture in the EU: the need for a human rights and gender-based approach Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs – Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union. European Parliament – May 2018.

(18)  
            The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development – Migrant and Refugee Integration, brochure from the European Network for Rural Development, 2016.

(19)  
            https://www.cleiss.fr/docs/stats/rapport_stat_2022.pdf.

(20)  Directive 96/71/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 1996 concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services (OJ L 18, 21.1.1997, p. 1).

(21)  Roux, 2018; Mazenc, 2020.

(22)  
            https://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/X2H-Xref-ViewHTML.asp?FileID=11393&Lang=EN.


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/283/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)