Spain races to immunise army of cheap labour against COVID-19 as harvest season nears

The aim is to avoid a repeat of the outbreaks of Covid-19 among farm workers in the northeastern regions of Catalonia and Aragon last year that fuelled a spike in infections, leading to localised lockdowns. "We had a really rough time last year. Municipalities were locked down, fruit packing stations were closed due to the Covid cases," said Jordi Janes, the mayor of Alcarras, a town of around 10,000 people near the city of Lleida.

This fruit-growing region that produces apples, pears and peaches usually draws some 20,000 temporary farm workers from as far afield as Colombia or Senegal for the harvest season. But last year the number who came looking for farm work soared, as a pandemic-induced economic downturn threw people out of work. Many were illegal migrants who ended up living on the streets or in cramped housing that favoured the transmission of the virus.

Only employees of agribusinesses are currently getting the jab but some locals want people who turn up looking for work, even if they are illegal migrants, to be vaccinated. Catalonia's regional government plans to vaccinate all farm hands eventually but it says the priority now are those already working. "These people are here, sleeping in the streets, without being able to wash up and it is really easy for them to get infected. And that is a time bomb," said Josep Maria Companys, a 61-year-old local farmer.

Time is running out though. The harvest season has once again drawn people looking for work who have ended up on the streets. "There is no work due to the virus and I came here looking," said Ousman, a 33-year-old illegal immigrant from Senegal, who came to Lleida from northern Spain where he used to earn a living as a street vendor. "But there is nothing here either, I don't have a home and it's really hard," he added, in a central square in Lleida where dozens of migrants had gathered.