Country: Italy

Wellbeing of Farmers:  Physical Wellbeing, Mental Wellbeing, Social Wellbeing

Key Challenges: Administrative burden, Legal employment/ fair working conditions

Key Target Groups: Farm Workers (laborers), Farmers facing financial difficulties

Farm Size: Small/Family, Medium

Find Out More

Key contact: Claudio Naviglia

Email: rete@humusjob.it

Organization: Humus Job

Relevant Links:

Website

Summary

Humus Job is a social enterprise that aims to regularise work through sharing.
Through the use of the Network Contract, farms can share the means of production, including labour, reducing the costs of regularisation. The worker, on the other hand, has a regular contract, with all the associated rights, and the possibility of greater work continuity.
In addition, Humus Job offers companies in the network the opportunity to use the “100% Ethical” label on their products, exploiting the commercial channels established by Humus itself.

Objective

The main goal of Humus Job is to promote and boost ethical and sustainable work in agriculture in Italy, by intersecting job supply and job demand between workers and farms, and by selling its services to farms.

Activities 

The SI promotes the establishment of the Network Contracts among farmers that allow them to share the means of production, included the workforce.
Humus Job takes care of the administrative aspects of the sharing mechanism.

Main Outcome of the activity

Farm owners overcome the mental pressure coming from the high cost of the labor; feel more serene when using a worker already trained, also avoiding the mental stress caused by the daily struggling to find trained workers; overcome the social isolation, boosting the solidarity and the ability to work together. At farm workers level, the SI offers them long-lasting regular contracts, which help them to have a dignified life

At community level, the SI supports the social acceptance of workers, above all if migrants, and promotes integration.

Main Practical Recommendations

Farm owners reduce their mental stress, improve their social activity, and increase their margin.
The worker improve their physical wellbeing, see his/her rights respected, is accepted in the community. In terms of generated knowledge, this reality contributes to classify a distinct social problem, that is irregular work in agriculture in Italy, to establish an opportunity as a set of solutions for the addressed problem and that is purposely designed for its main actors, that are farmers; e.g., dissemination of knowledge on contractual networks, cost-sharing etc.


Key Stakeholders Involved
  • Farm owners
  • Farm workers

Most Innovative Aspects of the Solution

The SI offers farm owners an alternative to cooperate each other and recruit workforce by sharing costs, investments and equipment. The most innovative aspect is the utilization of a contractual network among farmers as a tool to prevent irregular employment and create and foster enabling conditions for farms and, accordingly, for farm workers too. Additionally, differently than usual, Humus Job was founded by young people living in northern Italy, where irregular work, caporalato and labor exploitation are strong but less evident than southern Italy, and it was designed to address the problem throughout the Italian territory, that is to work as a network able to reach companies from north to south.