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According to the World Bank, agriculture is the largest employer in the world: it concerned 30% of the working population in 2010. Although in relative reduction (38% in 2000), the number of farm workers is increasing because of population growth and now exceeds a billion people. Relations between capital and labor; family and paid workers; and, more widely, forms of work organization (taylorism, delegation, mutual aid and co-operation) are crystallized around standard models of “farming systems”, combining a variety of productive ambitions, degrees of mechanization/automation and forms of labor organization: these models only represent the extremes, as the majority of farms borrow more or less from one or other of them, but they help thoughts about diversity. Transformations of farming systems are marked by increasingly important challenges regarding the environment and food safety, and by the dynamics of sectors subjected to requirements of quality and competitiveness. How do these transformations bring farming work into question? But farming work has also kept a very strong social and territorial dimension: it gives a place and a status to everyone; it nurtures, safeguards and stabilizes a rural population, and strengthens solidarities largely founded on a local cultural relationship with nature. The economic, social and environmental functions of farming work coexist. In rural territories, they may sometimes be complementary, but they can also be quite strained.

An international Association on Work in Agriculture: what for?

• To gather and consolidate a wide community of researchers, academics and advisors dedicated to studying the various facets of what constitutes “work in agriculture” and to compare the working and workers realities throughout the world
• To develop shared activities, events, projects that support the living community : Symposia, training courses, phD classes, researchers schools, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course), international research networks on specific topics, international observatory of work changes in farms….
• To develop resources for the members and shared information for all the website visitors. The resources are methodologies, knowledge, project design, advisory tools operational experiences; education kits. The information will be related to the members’ activities and publications, and to links with other associations, scientific communities and international events that are relevant
• To connect the association with international bodies, notably FAO and ILO, for a visibility of our contribution and expertise.