SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TEMPORARY WORKERS, IN THE FRUIT AND VEGETABLES ZONES AND THE SUGARCANE FIELDS IN MEXICO

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze, in the case of Mexico, the main mobility trends of temporary workers, linked to the production of fruits and vegetables for export, compared to the seasonal demand for labor used by the sugarcane agribusiness that it is mainly oriented, to the domestic market. It is concluded that these two subsectors concentrate the demand for agricultural workers in the country due to the processes of integration of production, to chains of global distribution and the control of transnational capitals. At the same time, the offer of day laborers has been extended to all the states of the country, as a result of the desagrarization, asalarization and migration in rural areas. Migratory flows linked to the fresh fruits and vegetables for export, show greater mutations, with respect to sugar cane in terms of worker profile, intermediation systems and working periods of time. The reflections presented here are based on a mixed approach that combines the findings of research based mainly on qualitative methodologies –carried out by the authors in different agricultural regions for more than a decade-, with the quantitative analysis of the statistical data recorded by the Department of Work and Social Welfare (STPS), within the framework of a program to support the internal mobility of rural workers.

Keywords

• mobilty systems
• agricultural workers
• migration
• labor markets
• agri-food chains