Less is more? Differences of social impacts on farm workers in short/long agricultural supply chains in Spain

Abstract

Agriculture is one of the most dangerous occupations in Europe. Practices such as the use of pesticides, physically demanding tasks, and long working hours are more common than in other sectors. Health risks jeopardise the transition to sustainable agriculture, affecting the well-being of farmers and workers. Although the economic and environmental sustainability of development strategies adopted by farms to thrive (i.e., economies of scale or specialisation vs. economies of scope or diversification) have been extensively studied, there is comparatively less research on how these different models affect workers' and farmers’ health. This paper assesses the social impacts of six farms in two farming systems in northeastern Spain to disentangle the effect that their contrasted productive strategies and value chain structures have on the social impacts of agricultural production. For this purpose, the Psychosocial Risk Factor (PRF) methodology was used. PRF is an impact pathway method within Social Life Cycle Assessment. It was used to establish an impact pathway between agricultural tasks, working conditions, and possible social risks, which allowed the quantification of impacts. Specific data on working hours allocated to each farm task were collected through a farmer survey. The results showed that farms in both case studies had the highest impacts related to the musculoskeletal system and articulations, even in farms that operate in the highly mechanised agro-industrial model. Since harvesting is the task to which they dedicate more time and remains mostly manual, mechanisation of certain tasks may not lead to an improvement in terms of hours of exposure to these risks. Regarding PRF hours per hectare, farms specialised in fruit production are less sustainable, since they are more intensive in labour demand. The smaller and more diversified farms use fewer mechanical labour and chemical pesticides per hectare, resulting in minor exposure to the overall health risks. Finally, our research highlights the crucial role of middle ground practices in improving sustainability by integrating agro-ecological methods into conventional agriculture, underscoring the importance of considering trade-offs between different productive and value chain structures.