Labour exploitation in Almería’s greenhouses underpins the region’s intensive vegetable production. Migrant workers endure long hours, low pay, and physically demanding work, often living in informal settlements, forming the backbone of an export-oriented system that offers little security or recognition.
An informal settlement for migrant workers in Almería made from discarded greenhouse materials
Workers in Almería’s greenhouses face gruelling schedules, handling heavy crops under high temperatures with minimal breaks. Wages are low and employment insecure, and many migrants live in informal settlements without basic services, reflecting the structural dependence of intensive agriculture on vulnerable labour.
This exploitation extends beyond individual hardship, shaping the broader agrifood system. Low labour costs help maintain cheap, year-round vegetable exports, while social and environmental costs—poor living conditions, health risks, and limited rights—remain largely invisible to consumers and policymakers.
Informal settlements arise because wages in Almería’s greenhouses are too low to afford rent, and many workers lack the documentation needed to secure rental agreements. Pay is often around 50% of the minimum wage, frequently paid day by day in cash, forcing migrants to live in precarious, informal housing close to the farms.
More than 60 informal settlements exist across the region of Almería
Working in Almería’s greenhouses exposes labourers to multiple dangers. Pesticide exposure affects long-term health, extreme heat creates risk of heat stress, and tasks like working at height are often carried out without proper safety equipment, making the environment physically demanding and potentially life-threatening.
Workers stand on thin wires to replace the greenhouse roof plastic
A worker sprays whitewash to reduce sun damage to crops
Informal settlements for greenhouse workers often lack basic sanitation, running water, and safe electricity or gas connections. These inadequate living conditions compound the risks faced on the job, creating daily hazards and undermining health and wellbeing outside the workplace.
Wokers in informal settlements lack running water, sanitation, and electricity
Migrant workers adapt to precarious conditions by using materials scavenged from the greenhouses to build shelters and repurposing plastic crates as tables and storage. These solutions allow them to survive in informal settlements, highlighting resilience in the face of systemic neglect and inadequate housing.
Inside a makeshift house (a chabola), where discarded items are repurposed for living
Life in informal settlements is fraught with hazards, including fire risks from improvised gas storage and unsafe electrical connections. Combined with poor sanitation and finacial insecurity, these conditions make daily life precarious and dangerous for workers already coping with harsh labour demands.
A man from Morocco carries groceries and water
Unsafe gas and electricity connections mean fires are common
Graffiti across Almería repeatedly calls out CASI and other intermediaries for exploitation, reflecting the ubiquity of complaints from workers. Locals seemingly ignore these messages, mirroring how the broader society overlooks the risks labourers face, from commuting by bike or scooter alongside massive transport trucks to enduring hazardous working and living conditions.
Graffiti denounces a local business for labour abuses, and workers contend with heavy traffic on unsafe roads
Authorities in Almería have repeatedly acted to dismantle informal settlements, aiming to remove these communities rather than provide support or alternative housing. Cortijo El Uno, home to around 50 people including nine children, is one example, where an eviction occurred in February 2025 under heavy police presence, leaving families homeless.
Police attend an informal settlement where young families were evicted
Authorities did not provide alternative accommodations
Almería’s greenhouse system depends on illegal and precarious migrant labour, yet the same system—and local society that benefits from it—treats these workers as disposable. The irony is stark: those whose work makes the industry profitable are exposed to the harshest conditions, while the communities and authorities that profit or turn a blind eye maintain a facade of normality.
A digger destroys a chabola during an informal settlement eviction
Los Grillos, effectively a high-density detention-like facility, has been proposed as an alternative to informal settlements for migrant workers. With strict curfews and crowded conditions, it illustrates how the system treats those who sustain it as problems to be managed rather than people to be supported.
The Los Grillos development aimed to house migrants displaced from informal settlements by eviction