Italy's 'green corridors' bring back foreign farmworkers

To fill the gap of trained seasonal foreign workers to harvest its crops, Italy has opened corridors for non-EU farmworkers who have had a work contract with Italian firms for years. Carrying over 100 farmworkers from Morocco, the first charter flight arrived in Italy on Thursday.
124 Moroccans arrived in the Italian city of Pescara on Thursday to help pick the country's ripening crops. They are the first group of foreign farmworkers who arrived in the EU member state via a so-called green corridor, paid for privately by farms.
"Green Corridors" is an initiative launched by the General Confederation of Italian Agriculture, or Confagricoltura, in collaboration with the Italian foreign ministry.
Another flight landed on Friday with the same number of workers and a third has been scheduled for the coming days, all from Casablanca.
Italy and other countries have grappled with travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has threatened their ability to harvest its agricultural produce at the beginning of the summer season.