Registration

Traditionally, migrant workers, particularly those in illegal situations face several constraints in getting decent agricultural jobs in countries where they settle. Rising tensions are now being witnessed with regard to the status of migrant workers in the farming and food sectors because of the emergence of policies, promoting protectionism and workers’ mobility, within host countries. Hence, several questions are raising concerning the sustainability of activities necessitating important workforce interventions: milking cows in large specialized herds, picking fruits and vegetables, etc. 

The International Association on Work in Agriculture (IAWA) proposes a webinar to address this topic on working conditions and mobility of migrant agricultural workers in host countries and the threats implied by current policies on the continuity of farming activities, particularly the labour-intensive ones. These protectionist policies not only threaten food systems in many developed countries, but they imply growing tensions with regard to the status, the life and the work conditions of migrants in these countries, particularly those who are active in the agriculture and food sector. Such tensions rise questions about the quality and the decency of work and also the management of conflicts that may emerge between both migrants and their employers (farmers, slaughterhouses, etc.), as well as the administrative bodies, and the existing laws and regulations designed to manage such situations. 

The webinar will be held on December 4th 2025,
from 1pm to 3 pm (Central European Time), in English. 

PROGRAM

Introduction on IAWA, program of Webinar and justification of webinar
Dr. Nathalie Hostiou – INRAE, France, President of the IAWA

Women's on the move: Navigating precarity and power asymmetries in Moroccan women's seasonal agricultural labor migration to Spain
Pr. Samiha Salhi, Moulay Ismaïl University, Morocco
Pr. Zhour Bouzidi, Moulay Ismaïl University, Morocco

This presentation explores the case of Moroccan women’s seasonal migration to Spain as a lens to understand the broader dynamics of migrant agricultural labor and working conditions in labor-intensive food systems. Since 2006, thousands of Moroccan women from rural areas have been recruited each year to work in southern Spain under a bilateral migration agreement. Framed as a model of “circular migration”, this program is often presented as a mutually beneficial that balances Spain’s agricultural labor needs while offering income opportunities for rural women. Yet, behind this narrative lies a complex reality of power asymmetries and gendered vulnerabilities. Drawing on recent literature, fieldwork insights and policy documents, this presentation situates the Morocco-Spain experience with debates on the sustainability of labor-intensive agriculture and argues that the circular migration model, while sustaining production through women’s flexible labor, also reinforces precarity and power asymmetries.

Changing farm labor regimes in the United States: migration, precarity, and policy 
Dr. Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, Syracuse University, USA

Romanian seasonal migrants in European agriculture: Work experiences and long-term impact on agricultural workers' quality of life 
Dr. Alin Croitoru, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania
Dr. Monica Serban, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu (SafeHabitus Romania) and Research Institute for Quality of Life (Romanian Academy)

The seasonal migration from Romania for working abroad in agriculture started when Romania was not yet a member state of the European Union and during the last decades evolved to represent one of the significant intra-European migration flows originating in this country. Recent empirical data collected within the Horizon Europe SafeHabitus project enable us to explore the experiences and narratives of individuals engaging in this type of migration by thanking into account their particular profile. Interviews conducted with active or retired seasonal migrants provide valuable insights into the vulnerabilities faced by these workers and the long-term implications that this type of migration has on Romanians seasonal workers’ quality of life.

Cross-cutting questions on the three presentations
Priscila Malanski - INRAE 

Conclusion: common specificities and divergence of the cases
Pr. Mohamed Taher Sraïri, Hassan II Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine Institute, Morroco

Registration

Nathalie Hostiou, President of IAWA, is a researcher at INRAE, with a PhD on animal sciences. She carries out researches on labour in livestock farming systems in different countries in the North and the South. She studies changes in farmers’ work organization and working conditions due to the adoption of agroecological practices or precision livestock farming. She co-authored the Quaework approach to qualify work organization and evaluate its efficiency and flexibility with a deep analysis of how livestock farming system management is involved. She is involved in the animation of several research groups of researchers on work in agriculture.

Samiha SALHI is a professor of sociology at the Faculty of Letters and Humanities at Moulay Ismail University in Meknes, Morocco. Her research interests and publications evolve around gender relations, agricultural labor, migration, and the global food system, with a focus on the Moroccan context. Her most recent contributions include an article, “In the shadow of everyday life: The hidden resistance of women farm workers in Morocco”(2024), and a co-authored book review (2025), both published in a special issue on “Women Agricultural Workers” in “Alternatives Rurales” journal. 

Zhour BOUZIDI is a sociologist, agronomist engineer and full professor of Sociology at the University of Meknes. Her main areas of research are: water and natural resources management, rural youth, rural developement, agricultural public policies, collective action, sociotechnical networks, agricultural labor and gender.In 2019 she produced a documentary film on female agricultural workers in Morocco entitled: “If We Don’t Work, We Starve”: The Daily Struggles of Female Agricultural Workers in Morocco.

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern is a human geographer and food systems scholar. She is an Associate Professor of Geography and the Environment and a Senior Research Associate with the Center for Policy Research at Syracuse University. Dr. Minkoff-Zern’s research and teaching broadly explores the interactions between food and racial justice, labor movements, and transnational environmental and agricultural policy. Her recent book, Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain (UC Press, 2025), looks at labor across food sectors, exploring the intersections between social movements in United States food systems and labor organizing. In 2024, she was named fellow with the American Association of Geographers. She earned a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley.

Alin Croitoru is a sociologist, Associate Professor at the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, and national coordinator of the SafeHabitus research team in Romania. He has extensive experience in research on social issues related to international migration, rural and local development, and other processes of social change. He has published in international peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Population, Space and Place; Current Sociology; International Social Work), and several of his articles have focused on intra-European seasonal migration in agriculture originating in Romania.

Monica Șerban is a senior researcher in the Research Institute for Quality of Life (ICCV), Romanian Academy, and collaborates with the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu for SafeHabitus project. She has researched and published on international migration, on topics like migration policies, re-migration, temporary migration. She undertaken research on Romanians` migration, doing fieldwork in Romania, Spain and Germany. She is currently the PI of the ICCV team participating in the Horizon Europe project Re-Place. Her chapter (a collaboration with Y. Mollinero-Gerbeau and A. Deliu) ”Are the guest worker programmes still effective? Insights from Romanian migration to Spanish agriculture” was published in J. F. Rye and K. O’Reilly (eds) International Labour Migration to Europe’s Rural Region, Routledge, in 2020.

Mohamed Taher Sraïri, Professor, senior lecturer, Hassan II Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine Institute, Rabat – MOROCCO.
I am an animal scientist, interest in dairy production systems.
At the beginning of my career, I have investigated the determinants of smallholder herds’ performances in Morocco: milk yield and quality, profitability, etc. Then, I began working on crop/livestock integration. This brought me to study water productivity in dual purpose herds (milk and meat simultaneously), as well as water volumes used and their origins (rainfall and/or irrigation) by the other crops on farms.
The interest devoted to resource uses also meant that I tried to characterize work uses in the Moroccan agricultural sector, in various regions (rain-fed, irrigations schemes, oases, etc) and the remuneration of this input.

Priscila Malanski is an agricultural systems researcher at INRAE, division ACT. With a PhD in Animal Science (AgroParisTech, France) and post-doctoral fellow at Business Management Department in the State University of Maringa (Brazil), her research interest covers human resource management in livestock farming systems, and bibliometric analysis of scientific knowledge related to work in agriculture and agri-food value chains.