The Pickers

Seydou from Mali is picking oranges in Southern Italy. He has no contract and is paid per crate – as all the other pickers are. He lives in a self-built hut in a settlement without water and electricity. THE PICKERS is a journey through a range of European growing regions where our fruit and vegetables are grown. Blueberries in Portugal, olives in Greece, strawberries in Spain – – wherever we go, it is migrants who harvest our fruit and vegetables. Most of them without contracts or minimum wages, some illegal or with high depths from agents.1 million migrants are picking our daily fruits and vegetables on European fields. They are the mobile working force, that fill our baskets in the supermarkets. Travelling from one harvesting field to the next.While exploitation in supply chains like chocolate or coffee is already discussed, fair fruit and veg is not yet a topic. But what we see adds a bitter taste to what we eat every day: our fruit and veg is rooted in exploitation.