Labour regimes and farm diversity in greenhouse farming systems: evidence from Mediterranean Europe

Almería, in south-eastern Spain, is one of the most intensive greenhouse horticultural systems in the Mediterranean. Its production model is highly labour-demanding, strongly dependent on migrant workers, and characterized by marked differences among farms. This article analyses how labour regimes vary across greenhouse farms and how these differences are associated with farm structure, technological development, workforce composition, contractual arrangements, and economic performance. Using survey data from greenhouse farms in Almería, the study develops a multivariate typology based on k-means clustering. The two-cluster solution was supported by the elbow method and the silhouette coefficient and was further assessed using PERMANOVA based on a Gower distance matrix. Canonical Analysis of Principal Coordinates and Mann–Whitney U tests were then used to validate and characterise the clusters. The results identify two coexisting labour-regime configurations. The first is composed of smaller farms with a higher relative contribution of family labour and higher average productivity. The second includes larger farms with more greenhouses, higher levels of automation, higher profitability, and greater reliance on migrant, temporary, and fixed-discontinuous labour arrangements. The findings show that labour regimes are not only managerial arrangements, but also indicators of farm diversity and agrarian restructuring in intensive horticulture. Rather than representing a linear transition from one farm model to another, the clusters reflect coexisting forms of labour organisation within the same territorial production system.