The externalization of agricultural labour and the agricultural services business

Abstract

This article analyses the outsourcing process of agrarian labours, which is leading to a tertiarised agriculture. The fragmented economic and occupational dimension of farms explains this outsourcing process as it makes almost impossible to incorporate the innovations and human capital that are needed by the food system own development. This demand has propitiated the existence of a network of service companies that enables the innovation introduction into the agriculture sector and the improvement of technical and professional qualifications, giving way to the possibility of increasing employment in the rural world. Outsourcing of agrarian labours began with mechanisation, but it widened and now affects to all kind of jobs. The process is deepening and it reaches even to the outsourcing of management, changing the identity of the agrarian businessman and giving cause for a very important structural change that one must take into account in the elaboration of the Agricultural Policy.