In the heart of the yellowish prairies of the Capitanata plain, which extends between the coast of the Adriatic Sea and the Gargano hills, articulated lorries loaded with crates of tomatoes race along badly-paved roads in the direction of Naples, raising clouds of dust as they go. There’s a Wild West atmosphere that gradually gives way to a more African scenario. In single file, seasonal workers from Ghana, Mali, Senegal, approach their camps at the end of a blistering day’s work. From the end of July to mid-October, thousands of them stopover in these camps in the south of Italy for the tomato picking season.



Paid off the books, the pay is not by hour but by task, € 3.5 ($4.75) for every 300-kilo chest, which works out to less than € 20 ($27) per day for punishing work; without work contracts or health coverage and at the mercy of the “caporali” – the intermediaries between the workers and their employers. If they get hungry at midday, they chew on a stolen tomato. In the evening, they trudge back to their camps, where they have been assigned a “bed”: a mattress in the open air or in a makeshift shack.









