Hard times force Spaniards back to fields

More and more Spaniards are returning to agricultural labour as recession bites

By Steve Kingstone BBC News, Huelva, Spain

A former bricklayer and painter, 35-year-old Andres Rangel Sanchez has traded in his brushes and trowel for a hairnet, a face-mask and a pair of rubber boots.

In what resembles a police forensic search, he and several dozen other seasonal workers sweep through a strawberry field, picking only the ripest, plumpest fruit.

In Huelva, close to Spain's south-western border with Portugal, February equals strawberries.

In construction, I was earning twice what I make here - but building has simply stopped Former bricklayer turned fruit picker Andres Rangel Sanchez

A quarter of a million tonnes of the fruit are harvested here annually, with the bulk of the crop exported to Germany, France and Britain.

The workforce is a United Nations of cheap immigrant labour - Senegalese, Moroccans, Romanians, Ukrainians, and Bulgarians - willing to toil in these fields for just 36 euros ($46,