BRACCIALETTO (agricolo). — A *bracciante* is the peasant without particular specialization who finds temporary employment on a farm under a short-term wage contract and derives his livelihood from this occasional work.
In practice, it is not always easy to identify the *bracciante* in statistical surveys, because within the group of those generally indicated by this term are included individuals of quite different backgrounds, from unemployed industrial workers to small part-owners who seek to supplement their very modest income by day labor. This case is very frequent in southern Italy, where the small owner is, from time to time, tenant, sharecropper, or *bracciante*, depending on the opportunities available to him and which he seeks assiduously given the insufficiency of the income from his tiny property. This uncertainty in determining the number of *braccianti* justifies the approximate estimates of their numbers and the controversies that have arisen over the relevant figures.
Based on data from Italian population censuses up to that of 1921, male agricultural wage workers amounted to about 3 million. The last two censuses show a sharp reduction in this figure: 1,993,302 (males only, in 1931) and 1,791,946 (males only, in 1936), i.e., 28% of the male agricultural population compared to 45% in 1921.
Some have interpreted these figures as evidence of the profound transformation underway in the structure of Italian agriculture. Unfortunately, this optimism is unfounded, and in any case the figures cited are not sufficient to justify it, since the criteria for data collection in the various censuses are not homogeneous. As Molinari acknowledges in the General Report to the 1936 Census, the large difference between the 1921 and 1931 data is due to the fact that in the former census the designation of *giornaliero* was applied to those farmers who also perform the wage labor mentioned above. There is no doubt about this fact, and moreover the serious defects in the data collection regarding occupational classification in agriculture had already been highlighted in the Faina Agrarian Inquiry. As for the number of wage laborers in the strict sense, the data from the last census may be considered sufficiently reliable. Thus we have 1,817,283 day laborers and 381,785 permanent wage laborers; in total more than two million *braccianti*, or one-quarter of the active Italian agricultural population. Of these, one-third are women.
The origins and reasons for the persistence in our country of such a large number of *braccianti* are manifold and vary from region to region: purely technical and economic reasons are combined with historical and social ones. Everywhere a common factor is the rapid growth of the rural population not accompanied by a corresponding expansion of job opportunities and by the scarcity of capital needed for major land transformations. Among the economic-technical reasons must be mentioned the productive organization of recently reclaimed areas and those with extensive cultivation, characterized by poor cereal crops and the lack of livestock activities. In this organization there are strong seasonal variations in labor demand.
The relatively high net income provided by agriculture organized in this way in our country, combined with the lack of capital and the considerable risk involved in investments in intensive and especially tree crops, maintain this farming system in a state of not being able to continuously absorb agricultural workers throughout the year.
It should be noted that while the capitalist farm creates and sustains the wage laborer, the most serious aspects of this relationship do not arise so much from its nature as from its precariousness. This precariousness is less severe in areas where livestock farming predominates, where permanent wage laborers are more common, and more acute elsewhere.
In the South, the *bracciante* is sustained by the existence of large estates under extensive cultivation, while the extremely limited size of direct cultivators' properties forces them to seek employment in the surplus labor opportunities in extensive cereal farms. The lack of roads, water, and the general environmental conditions hinder land consolidation and perpetuate a farming system that requires a large absorption of labor at peak times, leaving workers almost unemployed for the rest of the year. In some areas, the persistence of large masses of *braccianti* also depends on the fact that reclamation work required more personnel than the reclaimed land could absorb, at least initially.
The situation of the *braccianti* can be aggravated by the presence of seasonal industrial activities (sugar and canning industries), the discontinuity of public works, the excessive supply of labor in areas with consolidated holdings, and finally by unemployment in industry.
From a topographical point of view, the *bracciante* is most common in the lower Po Valley (one-third of all *braccianti*), particularly in Emilia with 200,000, in Veneto with 155,000, and in Lombardy with 143,000. In Piedmont, *braccianti* are very common in the provinces of Novara and Vercelli, especially for rice cultivation, while the intensive development of livestock farming in the Lombard plain maintains a significant number of permanent wage laborers.
Outside the Po Valley, *braccianti* constitute a considerable mass in Sicily (235,000), Apulia (224,000), and to a lesser extent in some areas of Campania, Calabria, and Lazio.
From what has been said, it is clear that the characteristic of their work, and therefore of their income, is precariousness. On average, it can be estimated that annual employment is between 200 and 250 days, meaning that about one-third of working days are lost.
This is work for which no special skills are usually required, except physical endurance; it is heavy and concentrated in a few months, performed in particularly harsh environmental conditions from spring to autumn for plowing, hoeing, harvesting, mowing, threshing, and ditch-digging. During peak periods, working hours exceed the eight-hour limit. Once these periods are over, unemployment is inevitable. Under these conditions, even if wage rates have improved over time, the income of these workers remains extremely low.
From the Agrarian Inquiry to the recent one by the National Institute of Agricultural Economics, and numerous monographs by individual scholars, it is possible to gather painful documentation. Before the war, despite the greater job opportunities that economic policy offered in some areas with a high number of *braccianti*, average earnings rarely exceeded 2,000 lire per year, and household expenses remained significantly below this figure. As can be seen, this is a wretched budget, even if these figures may be considered only approximate and underestimated. Housing conditions are usually poor. The workplace is often far from the place of residence, imposing tiring commutes that worsen the living conditions of the worker and his family. The meager income of the head of the household forces children to work at an early age, and even women with small children contribute to the family income.
The most recent information reveals no substantial improvement in the condition of the mass of farm laborers, which can be summed up in the word poverty. From this it follows that in some areas, in certain cases extending to vast regions such as Romagna and Apulia, the state of unrest is permanent; also because a considerable part of these workers is detached from the agricultural production process. The farm laborer feels that the course of agricultural production does not belong to him and that, in a sense, it can even proceed without him through mechanization. At the root of this evil lies the eternal search of man for security for himself and his family, and for the peace that comes from fulfilled duty; while for many months of the year he is forced into the most degrading and demoralizing idleness.
If these are the conditions of material and social life, it is easy to imagine the extreme difficulties of a healthy moral life. Education is hindered by the need to employ the labor of children, and by all those circumstances—aggravated in this case by poverty—which already place the farm worker at a disadvantage. The mixed, rough, manual labor performed away from home, and the high proportion of female farm laborers, constitute on the other hand a very serious threat to a healthy moral life; a threat hitherto contained by a religious sentiment, more or less deeply felt in different areas, but itself exposed to easy adverse propaganda and not founded on even a modest education.
The situation is even more painful where farm labor involves displacement from one’s own home. Then the stay for fairly long periods in work communities becomes a source of serious dangers.
Given these characteristics of the farm laborer, the problem is not merely one of achieving more humane working conditions and less wretched wages, but requires, within the limits of possibility, a modification of the structure of the agricultural enterprise that employs farm laborers. Indeed, the measures repeatedly adopted—such as work shifts, prohibitions on labor exchange, and labor quotas, as well as limits on the use of machinery—merely redistribute labor and often result in increased production costs. Together with public works projects, they may serve as temporary solutions to particularly acute unemployment crises, but they do not eliminate the causes of the farm laborer’s woes.
The fundamental remedy is land distribution (*appoderamento*), through which, with mixed cultivation, a better distribution of the peasant family’s labor throughout the year is achieved, while the intensive character of the agriculture it presupposes increases income. Living on the farm, sharing in the produce—even when small property ownership has not been achieved—binds the worker to the land by guaranteeing him security of livelihood and stimulating his interest. On the farm, it is easy to find activities that, while continuously employing the worker, ensure him a higher income, while also increasing the volume of production for the community.
Unfortunately, agrarian conditions do not always permit this transformation. At times, land distribution requires substantial reclamation works and significant investment—that is, the resources of large enterprises or the State. In many areas of southern Italy, land distribution is contingent upon a genuine agrarian reform, accompanied by a complex set of works including reclamation, road construction, aqueducts, and housing. To achieve these results, while private initiative may play a beneficial and desirable role, State assistance or direct intervention is required.
It must be noted, however, that even in areas where land distribution is possible, it is not feasible today, given the population surplus, to envisage the complete transformation of the mass of farm laborers. Indeed, it has been shown how numerous are the factors that determine the formation of the farm laborer, among which the increase in the rural population is not the least. Moreover, the necessary technical progress of Italian agriculture requires a greater diffusion of mechanical means and thus, in many areas, a reduced human labor force per unit of land.
It would therefore be imprudent to think of a total solution to the problem, as if by magic, through land distribution alone. Agrarian transformation must be complemented and accompanied by adequate development of commercial and industrial activities, if emigration is not desired or possible. Where land distribution cannot be implemented, the conditions of farm laborers can be improved through sharecropping contracts. Under these contracts, a plot of land is assigned to the farm laborer, who receives a share of the produce according to the type of cultivation (v. COMPARTECIPAZIONE). Such an employment relationship not only provides the farm laborer with a valuable supplement to his income but also allows for better utilization of the family’s labor force and contributes to increased production.