Photos: The Indian hands behind Italy’s famed Parmigiano-Reggiano

The Italian cheese making industry in the latter half of the 20th century faced a shortage of workers on farms and factories with the country’s young workers turning to urban centres seeking white-collar jobs. With the production of the country’s famed Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese on a decline in the north, an unlikely source of aid in the 1980s became thousands of migrant workers from Punjab who, eager for employment and seeking greener pastures, took up the tedious, tiresome and often smelly task of producing the ‘King of cheese’.