The Hands that Feed Us: Shamar Dawkins
The Hands that Feed Us is series of Eating Niagara that profiles a seasonal agricultural worker once a month. This is the final instalment of the nine-part series.
Everyone has a nickname on the fruit farm where Shamar Dawkins works.
There’s Short Man and Tall Man — monikers given for obvious reasons. Black Man is a playful spin on the last name of another worker.
Dawkins goes by Super. It’s short for supervisor, the role the 34-yearold from Clarendon, Jamaica, assumes eight months of the year on Werner’s Fruit Farm in Niagaraon-the-Lake.
Not only is it Dawkins’s job title, Super altogether describes this super tenacious, super grateful human being.
Between April and November every year, there’s nowhere Dawkins would rather be than overseeing the daily operations of the Werner’s stone fruit orchards and vegetable gardens.
“I’d never stop coming,” Dawkins said. “It’s in your blood. He’s a good boss and he’ll always take you back every year if you’re a good worker.”
And Dawkins is. The 12-year veteran of the seasonal agricultural workers program is a natural farmer. He was born into the profession in Jamaica where he grew up with his extended family raising cattle and donkeys.
They also grew coffee, and cocoa beans for chocolate, which introduced Dawkins to the manual labour that would hold him in good stead on a Niagara fruit farm as an adult. It was his job to “break chocolate” before school each morning, cracking the roasted beans to get at the prized cacao nibs inside. He also had to do the nimble work of picking coffee.
Sugar cane was his family’s most important crop, however, enabling his parents to send their five children to school.
Although it was intended to provide him with opportunity, sugar cane ironically hindered Dawkins. As the eldest child, he often stayed home from school to help with harvest while his brother and sisters attended class.
The financial returns didn’t always provide for the necessities growing up, either.
“I remember times when I was going to school, I could hardly find lunch money,” Dawkins recalled. “In high school, I remember I always had the courage to keep my eye on the prize. Every day I had enough money for my bus fare to get to school. I didn’t always have lunch money but I always wanted to go to school.”
When cash flowed to a trickle, Dawkins had to forgo even that. He gave up his spot on the bus so the others could make roll call instead. Today Dawkins still ensures his youngest sister, who’s 13, can attend class each day by using some of his earnings in Canada to support her.
There isn’t the slightest twinge of resentment in his voice as he talks about the sacrifices he’s made for his family, though.
Dawkins focuses on the positive, like the time he got a job at an agricultural agency after high school. He sopped up every bit of knowledge he could. Then his member of parliament told him about the seasonal agricultural workers program that sends as many as 2,800 men and women to Niagara farms for up to eight months every year.
“When I heard about it, I was excited,” Dawkins said. “They told me about the process. I went for the interview and I got through.”
In 2006, Dawkins found himself on Matthew Werner’s farm, next to the Welland Canal on the border of St. Catharines and Niagara-on-theLake. Opportunity kept knocking there. Within two years, Dawkins scaled the ranks to become supervisor and manage the farm.
As Super, it’s his job to ensure everyone works and works well. He arrives at Werner’s before Short Man, Tall Man and Black Man each spring. He’s also the last one to leave in November, staying up to a month longer than anyone else.
During the growing season, Dawkins is out the door at least an hour before his colleagues to ensure everything is in place for a productive workday. He walks through that same door at least an hour after the others have clocked out, wrapping up one shift and prepping for the next.
“I have to make sure everything is done right every day because one screw up sets us back a whole day,” Dawkins said. “But we always work as a team. You can always count on anyone at any time.”
That includes his employer, he said. “He has lots of dreams for this place. Next year, he wants to put in farm infrastructure so things will be easier for us. I pray that God will continue to strengthen him so his dreams will be a reality as well.”
After all, supporting Werner’s dreams means Dawkins can fulfil his own.
He uses his earnings to build a life with his fiancée in Jamaica, where he now has his own land to grow sugar cane. He’s building a house there, too, and favourable circumstances for the children he hopes to have one day.
And for that, Dawkins is super grateful.
“That’s why I work nine to five every day to give them opportunity back home,” he said. “Matthew Werner and Sophia Werner, these are the two most important people who have given me the opportunity for success. They’ve given me the opportunity to be here time and time again so I can help my family back home.”
— Tiffany Mayer is the author of Niagara Food: A Flavourful History of the Peninsula’s Bounty.
She blogs about food and farming at timeforgrub.com. Follow her on Twitter @eatingniagara.