The 8,000 kilometers that separate Honduras from Spain have not prevented the campaign to harvest the fields of Huelva (southwest Spain) from counting, for the first time, with seasonal workers from that Central American country, as well as from Ecuador, in a pilot contracting experience in source.
There are about 250 people of each nationality whose selection and arrival are coordinated by several agricultural organizations in charge of managing the GECCO contingent -Collective Management of Contracting at Origin-, in addition to the 12,000 women who move from Morocco every year.
José Aníbal Amador and José Vidal Aranda are two of those Hondurans; Both were selected last October in their country by personnel from the Union of Small Farmers (UPA) of Huelva.
Since February 1 they have been working at Fres Méndez, a company in the municipality of Moguer, where they adapt to the local climate and schedules and the “hard task”, they say, of picking strawberries, which “has nothing to do” with coffee. , beans or corn, crops to which they are dedicated.
they talk to EFE in the greenhouse and they assure that the trip is tiring, since it was almost 20 hours since they left home until they arrived in Huelva; but once this is overcome, and once settled, they feel “happy” with the experience, with the boss and the conditions of the accommodation that he provides them during the time they will be in the area, until June 30.
The salary they will receive in Spain, regulated by the provincial farm agreement, is one of the main motivations that encouraged them to move, leave their country and their family for a few months to give them a more comfortable life with this income.
According to the Prices and Markets Observatory of the region of Andalusia, to which Huelva belongs, this Spanish province is the world’s largest exporter of strawberries.
Hard experience, but also satisfying
Their personal circumstances are different; José Aníbal Amador, 43, tells, without being able to avoid being moved, that he has left his partner and their two children, aged 2 and 4, in San Antonio de Cortés, something “quite hard and painful”, but that “it deserves the penalty” for the salary, “much higher” than what he earns in his country.
He is happy with an experience that, so far, has been “wonderful”, although he does not fail to recognize the hardness of the work, because “the strawberry is picked up from a crouch and you end up very sore and tired”, but he does not regret having I come.
For José Vidal Aranda, from San Agustín de Copán, distance is less difficult, he relativizes it; At 28 years old and without children, although she does have a partner, she thinks that in five months she will be with her family again and, in the meantime, she enjoys “the beauty and pleasure of leaving your country, discovering new places and living new experiences”.
Raised from a very young age in agriculture, he agrees with his colleague that the cultivation and harvesting of products such as tomatoes, corn or coffee has nothing to do with strawberries: “It’s not like anything I’ve done before, but we are learning and that is good.
No incidents at the moment
The issuance of authorizations for these workers is carried out by the Secretary of State for Migration, dependent on the Spanish Government.
According to sources from that department, so far no complaint has been reported, neither from the companies nor from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in charge of “verifying” that the temporary accommodations comply with a series of recommendations included in the order that regulates the contracting program.
“If an incident is seen, it should be the Labor Inspectorate that intervenes and we take note of the program, but to date no complaint has been reported,” stressed the sources consulted.
They also recalled that a Migration delegation supervised the selection process last October in Honduras and Ecuador, where “all workers were individually informed about the conditions.”
For the time being, this pilot experience with Honduras and Ecuador is going according to plan and the adaptation of the workers to the Huelva countryside is being easier than in the case of the Moroccan seasonal workers since, in this case, the language barrier disappears and the cultural when they relate to Spaniards. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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