ABSTRACT
Large landed estates often have an interesting history, worth digging into. Labour hiring is usually regarded as the capitalist relation of production. A classic study from the 1980s of salad farms in California, United States of America (USA), showed that farm workers were recruited from highly segmented niches in the labour market, with illegal immigrants at the lower rungs doing the most tedious jobs at the lowest wages. Green Card holders occupied a higher and somewhat better niche, as overseers, quality controllers, etc. In Andalusia in Spain, as well as in latifundist areas in South America and also currently in India, there are farm management firms, taking on large landholdings on the part of their owner families, proffering professional management of the farms, using up to date methods, much machinery and recruiting specialised workers and small ‘armies’ of casual labour. Property-owning peasants, in England called yeoman farmers became a small minority in the countryside.
