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In the last two decades many rural areas of the countries bordering the northern Mediterranean are undergoing major transformations. The industrialization of the countryside and farmers reconstruction? Has been necessary, but this means that their small businesses rely exclusively on international markets. At the same time, there has appeared an additional factor: the emergence of immigrant labor and dependence on it for their agricultural existence. This phenomenon can already be called «Southern model for agricultural exploitation». This research shows how social transition processes have affected two zones with very similar characteristics in Southern Europe: the province of Almeria (Spain) and the Plain of Sibari, in the province of Cosenza (Italy). We describe the elements that characterize the Mediterranean context, the dynamics of migration and its relationship with changes in agriculture, and then analyze each case, highlighting similarities and differences. This is a comparative analysis between the two areas regarding the dynamics of social transition: innovation, modernization and the crisis caused by modern market systems and the role of migration. Immigrants have resisted the crisis well, they have even been introduced into the urban and residential fabric, but the labor market has not ceased to have thousands of cases of undocumented laborers in the workforce, turned into «underground districts» (socio-economic system integrated and structured on the basis of administrative illegality and institutional racism). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]