Recently there has been an upsurge of incidents of labour exploitation in the Greek agricultural farm sector. This project will seek to evaluate farmers' claims that in order to keep market prices at levels consumers are willing to pay and be competitive relative to imported agricultural products, they can’t afford the cost of providing fringe benefits (subsistence wages, reasonable working hours, access to descent housing and personal hygiene facilities, health care services etc.) to the employees. Thus, as they claim, their only option is to settle with illegal employment practices. Questionnaire based surveys will be conducted using two popular stated preferences methods (Contingent Valuation and Choice experiments) to elicit consumers’ valuation for agricultural products that are certified to ensure fair working conditions (e.g., minimum wage, fair working conditions, decent accommodation) for the workers employed at all production stages. This study will allow to infer if costs of providing fair working conditions can be recouped from farm business and thus whether farmers’ claims are vague. 

This project was evaluated and funded as part of the Foundation’s effort to support research teams with all their members being under 40 years old.