1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites

Blood, sweat & greens

52:04

This browser does not support the video element.

November 15, 2024

Fresh fruit and vegetables at bargain prices. In Europe, this often goes hand in hand with exploitation and suffering. Most harvest laborers work and live in precarious conditions. The pickers deliver, but they also pay the price for our luxury.

The absurdity of consumer behavior in the western world is something we should’ve woken up to long ago. No matter the season, almost any type of fruit and vegetable can be purchased in the supermarket. But this takes a toll: both on our environment, as well as on the people who toil for our luxuries. Their suffering, however, is suppressed. The conditions under which they live and work do not seem to matter - the only thing that counts is picking speed. "You can't see the reality, it's hidden,” says the chairman of the Andalusian agricultural workers' union. Blueberries in Portugal, olives in Greece, strawberries in Spain — around one million migrants are currently working in European fields. The pickers are the itinerant laborers who fill the baskets of our supermarkets, most of them without receiving a contract or minimum wage, some without papers, or with high debts to intermediaries. The film is a journey to the European fields where fruit and vegetables are grown. In southern Italy, Seydou from Mali picks oranges. He has no contract and is paid by the crate. He lives in a self-built hut in a settlement without water or electricity. The camera dives into the sea of cultivation tents that cover thousands of hectares of farmland and gives a face to people who are invisible in our society.

Skip next section About the show

About the show

DocFilm

Exciting stories, a wide variety of topics, fascinating pictures: every day, half or three-quarters of an hour of carefully researched background reports from the worlds of politics, business, science, culture, nature, history, lifestyle and sport.

Skip next section DW's Top Story

DW's Top Story

Skip next section More stories from DW