Bracciantato (Agricolo)

BRACCIANTATO (Agricolo). - A bracciante is the peasant laborer, without particular specialization, who finds temporary employment on the agricultural holding under a short-term wage-labor contract and who derives his means of subsistence from this occasional work.

In practice it is not always easy to identify the bracciante in statistical surveys, because into the group of those generically designated by this term flow individuals of very different provenance, from the unemployed industrial worker to the small parcel-holding proprietor who seeks to supplement, with day labor, his very modest income. This case is extremely frequent in southern Italy, where often the small proprietor is, in turn, tenant farmer, sharecropper, bracciante, according to the possibilities offered to him and which he assiduously seeks, given the insufficiency of the income from his tiny property. This uncertainty in determining braccianti justifies the approximate estimates of their number and the polemics that have arisen over the relevant figures.

On the basis of data from the censuses of the Italian population, up to that of 1921, male wage laborers in agriculture amounted to about 3 million. The last two censuses show this figure greatly reduced: 1,993,302 (males only, in 1931) and 1,791,918 (males only, in 1936), that is, 28% of the male agricultural population as against 45% in 1921.

Some have commented on these figures as proof of the profound transformation under way 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 of survey in the various censuses are not homogeneous and, as Molinari acknowledges in the Relazione generale al Censimento del 1936, the sharp difference between the data of 1921 and of 1931 is due to the fact that in the first of the two censuses the qualification of day laborer was attributed to those farmers who also perform wage labor, mentioned above. On this fact there is no doubt, and moreover the serious defects of the survey relating to occupational classification in the censuses, as regards agriculture, had already been highlighted in Fama's Inchiesta agraria. As for the number of wage laborers in the strict sense, the data of the last census can be considered sufficiently reliable. And then we have 1,817,283 day laborers and 381,785 permanent wage laborers; in all, more than two million braccianti, that is, 1/4 of the active agricultural population of Italy. Of these, one third consists of women.

The origins and the reasons for the persistence in our country of so large a number of braccianti are many and varied from zone to zone: purely technical and economic reasons combine with historical and social reasons. Everywhere the common motive is the rapid growth of the rural population not accompanied by an adequate expansion of work opportunities and by the scarcity of capital necessary for major land transformations. Among the reasons of an economic-technical order, mention must be made of the productive organization of recently reclaimed zones and of those under extensive cultivation, characterized by poor herbaceous crops and by the absence of livestock activities. In this organization there are strong seasonal variations in the demand for labor.

The relatively high net income yielded by agriculture thus organized in our country and the deficiency of capital, together with the considerable risk entailed by investments in intensive crops and especially in tree crops, keep this cropping system unsuited to absorbing agricultural workers continuously throughout the year.

It is worth noting that if the capitalist holding creates and maintains wage labor, the most serious aspects of this relationship arise not so much from its nature as from its precariousness. It is less serious in zones where the livestock orientation prevails, where permanent wage laborers are very frequent, and more acute in the others.

In the south the bracciante is maintained by the existence of large properties under extensive cultivation, while the very limited extent of the properties of direct cultivators obliges them to seek employment in the surplus work opportunities on extensive cereal holdings. The lack of roads, of water, and the general conditions of the environment hinder the consolidation of land into farms and perpetuate a cropping system that imposes at peak moments a large absorption of labor, leaving it almost unemployed for the rest of the year. In some zones the persistence of large masses of braccianti also depends on the fact that reclamation works have required more personnel than the reclaimed land can absorb, at least initially.

The situation of the braccianti can be aggravated by the presence of seasonal industrial activities (sugar-beet and canning), by the discontinuity of public works, by the excessive burden of hands in neighboring consolidated-farm zones, and finally by unemployment in industry.

From a topographical point of view the bracciante is more frequent in the lower Po valley (1/3 of the braccianti), and in particular in Emilia with 200,000, in Venetia with 155,000, in Lombardy with 143,000. In Piedmont braccianti are quite frequent in the provinces of Novara and Vercelli, especially for rice growing, while the intense development of livestock raising in the Lombard plain maintains a considerable number of permanent wage laborers.

Outside the Po plain, braccianti constitute a notable mass in Sicily (235,000), in Apulia (224,000) and to a lesser extent in some zones of Campania, Calabria and Latium.

From what has been mentioned it follows that the characteristic of their work and therefore of their income is precariousness. On a rough average it can be held that annual employment ranges between 200 and 250 days, that is, about 1/3 of the working days is lost.

This is work for which usually no special aptitudes are required, save physical endurance; it is heavy and concentrated in certain months and performed under particularly harsh environmental conditions, from spring to autumn, for plowing, hoeing, reaping, mowing, threshing, and for excavation work. At peak periods the limits of eight hours are exceeded. Once these are past, unemployment is inevitable. Under these conditions, even though wage rates have improved over time, the income of these workers remains extremely low.

From the agrarian inquiry to the recent one of the Istituto Nazionale di Economia Agraria, and to numerous monographs by individual scholars, it is possible to derive painful documentation. Before the war, despite the more numerous work opportunities that the economic policy pursued offered in some zones where the number of braccianti is highest, average earnings rarely exceeded 2,000 lire a year, and the expenditure incurred per unit of consumption remained appreciably below this figure. As can be seen, this is a miserable budget, even if these data may be considered only approximate to the truth by defect. Housing conditions are usually very poor. The place of work is often also considerably distant from that of residence, imposing tiring movements that worsen the living conditions of the worker and his family. The scanty income of the head of the family obliges the children to work early, and even women with small children contribute to it.

The most recent information does not reveal any substantial improvement in the condition of the mass of day laborers, which can be summed up in the word misery. From this it follows that in some zones, in certain cases extending over vast regions, Romagna and Apulia, the state of agitation is permanent; also owing to the fact that a considerable portion of these workers is detached from the productive process. The day laborer feels that the course of agricultural production does not belong to him and that it can, in a certain sense, even proceed without him through mechanization. At the root of this evil lies man's eternal quest, yearning for security for himself and his family, and for the peace that comes from duty fulfilled; while for many months of the year he is forced into the most humiliating 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 use the labor of small children, and by all those circumstances which, aggravated in this case by misery, already place the worker of the land at a disadvantage. Promiscuous, rough, manual labor, carried on far from home, and the high proportion of women day laborers, constitute on the other hand a very grave threat to a healthy moral life; a threat contained up to now by a religious sentiment, more or less deeply felt in the various zones, but itself exposed to easy hostile propaganda and not founded on even a modest education.

Matters appear in an even more painful light where the day laborer's work requires him to move away from his own dwelling. Then a stay, for periods that may be quite long, in work collectives becomes a source of grave dangers.

Given these characteristics of the b. [bracciante], the problem is not reduced to achieving more humane working conditions and a less wretched wage treatment, but requires modifying, as far as possible, the structural organization of the agricultural enterprise that employs day laborers. In fact, the measures repeatedly adopted — work shifts, prohibition of exchange and compulsory hiring of labor, limits on the use of machines — bring about a mere redistribution of work, and often have the effect of increasing production costs. Together with the execution of public works, they can serve as a temporary solution to particularly acute crises of unemployment, but they do not eliminate the causes of the day laborer's ills.

The fundamental remedy is that of appoderamento [settlement on small farms], through which, with the mixed cultivation of crops, a better distribution of the peasant family's work throughout the year is achieved, while the intensive character of the agriculture that it presupposes increases its income. Dwelling on the farm, participation in the product, even in the case where the formation of a small property has not been achieved, bind the worker to the land through that security of living conditions which it guarantees him and through the interest that it stimulates. On the farm it is easy to find those activities which, while continuously occupying the worker, assure him a higher income, while procuring for the community a greater volume of production.

Unfortunately, agrarian conditions do not always permit this transformation. Sometimes appoderamento presupposes substantial land reclamation works, and imposes considerable investments, that is, the means of large enterprise or of the State. In many zones of southern Italy appoderamento is conditional upon a true agrarian reform, accompanied by a substantial complex of works including land reclamation, construction of roads, aqueducts, and housing. To achieve these results, while a beneficial and desirable private initiative is not excluded, the assistance or direct intervention of the State is required.

It is necessary to warn, however, that even in zones where appoderamento is possible, one cannot, today, given the overpopulation, think of the complete transformation of the mass of day laborers. Indeed, it has been noted how numerous are the reasons that determine the formation of the b. [bracciante], and among them not least the increase of the rural population. Moreover, the necessary technical progress of Italian agriculture imposes a greater diffusion of mechanical means and therefore, in many zones, a smaller load of human labor per unit of surface area.

It would therefore be imprudent to think of the total solution of the problem, as if by the effect of a magic wand, through appoderamento. Agrarian transformation must be completed and accompanied by an adequate development of commercial and industrial activities, if one does not wish or cannot think of emigration. Where appoderamento cannot be carried out, the conditions of the day laborer can be improved through the sharecropping contract. Under it, a plot is assigned to the day laborer in concession, granting him, for the work he applies to it, a share of the product that varies according to the type of crop (v. COMPARTECIPAZIONE). Such a work relationship, while offering the day laborer a precious supplement to his budget, permits a better use of the family's labor forces and contributes to the increase of production.

Silvio Golzio