Farm Workers & Their Labor Conditions | Brazil

Retired Professor and Photographer Antonio Mozeto is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this documentary photography. From the project ‘Rural Life’. To see Antonio’s body of work, click on any image.

Coffee Harvest Worker
Sao Joao Batista do Gloria, Minas Gerais

Male sugar cane worker
Usina Descalvado, Sao Paulo

Female sugar cane worker
Usina Descalvado, Sao Paulo

Sugar cane worker in a bus
Usina Descalvado, Sao Paulo

I have an umbilical link with rural workers. I am the son of father and mother who were hard rural workers, owners of small piece of land in the interior of the State of São Paulo (Borborema municipality), Southeast Brasil. I myself, throughout my childhood and adolescence, and even completing university, when on a vacation, worked on the land: planting, harvesting, weeding, helping with cattle management, etc. I am proud of my past.

This project is indeed a tribute to my parents, Mr. Antonio Mozetto (descendent of Italians) and Mrs. Eliza Llobregat (descendent of Spaniards) , who lived and enjoyed the benefits of the land throughout their lives. I also dedicate this project to the tireless rural workers, men and women, of this immense country called Brazil. They are people who, from the sunrise until the sun sets, dedicate themselves tirelessly to the hard work in the production of food that we all have at our table. There are those who work on their own piece of land while others are employed and are, for this reason, subject to many other risks and who works under conditions that disregard present laws that written to promote their physical and mental protection and guarantee them social rights like any other citizen. They are exposed to many types of direct and indirect physical and mental hazards. Such risks are synergistically expressed, cumulative throughout their lives. Not always the Rural Regulatory Norms (the NR 31 on Safety and Health at Work in Agriculture, Livestock Forestry, Forest Exploration and Aquaculture of 2005) is obeyed, a norm that brings advances in relation to the previous existing legislation in the country. There are many advances that are still needed, as well as serious noncompliance with legislation and many forms of slave labor (including of children) in various regions of Brazil.