National Post (National Edition)
FARMERS STRUGGLE TO SECURE SEASONAL WORKERS WHILE MAINTAINING PRODUCTION.
Safely get hires from airports, 14-day isolation
Lettuce, asparagus and other fruit and vegetable producers are planning to quarantine thousands of seasonal workers on farms throughout Canada as Ottawa attempts to safeguard domestic food production while also containing the rapid spread of COVID-19.
The Department of Agriculture is rushing to establish protocols for how farmers will safely transport workers from airports and carry out mandatory 14-day quarantines.
The federal government is also entering in talks with foreign governments, including Guatemala, that have shut their own borders to slow down the rate of coronavirus infections.
“We are working with our health department federally, and with the provinces on the rules … but I can tell you that it will be the responsibility of the employers to make sure that they comply,” Agriculture Minister Marie Claude Bibeau said during a call with reporters Monday. “Otherwise, they could lose their privilege to have new foreign temporary workers in the coming year. So, this is definitely something that they won’t play with.”
Quebec’s Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA) has been spearheading the effort to establish the guidelines, which may include providing protective equipment to farmers. The protocols will address how to assist farmers who lack appropriate facilities to quarantine workers and how to ensure the rules are being followed, said Mary Robinson, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
“There are so many cogs in this wheel,” said Robinson. “But the protocol being developed is very detailed. There will be no stone left unturned. No one wants a virus to infect their workforce and shut down their farm. Everyone
is highly incentivized to do this right.”
Roughly 60,000 workers from the Caribbean, Guatemala and Mexico arrive in Canada each year to seed and harvest crops. About 4,000 workers are already in the country and in a normal year, thousands more would be arriving each week until the fall. That flow stopped abruptly last week after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau barred all international visitors to Canada — with the exception of Americans, diplomats and flight crews. The government has since added seasonal and temporary foreign workers to the list of travellers exempted from the restrictions.
Meantime, other countries have imposed travel restrictions that could make it difficult to secure seasonal employees. Guatemala for instance, has halted all flights in and out of the country as it attempts to slow the speed of COVID-19 transmission. Quebec is particularly reliant on workers from Guatemala, Robinson said.
“I expect to have something substantive soon,” Robinson said. “Every day we don’t bring in workers is a lost day of production and that’s an issue.”
Canada’s travel restrictions have left farmers grappling with how to seed and harvest thousands of acres of broccoli, lettuce, asparagus and other fruits and vegetables.
“There were supposed to be four people coming today,” said Ken Forth, a broccoli farmer and chair of the labour section of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association. “We’ve already seeded two greenhouses. If we don’t get workers this week we won’t seed a third. This is a $5-billion industry. If we don’t get this sorted out now there could be major damage.”
The federal government has been focused on repatriating Canadians, many of whom were stuck abroad when flights and other forms of commercial travel were cancelled. Still, as of this past weekend, there were planes available to transport workers, Forth said.