Harvest a go with arrival of migrant workers
Migrant workers must self-isolate for 14 days after their arrival
Despite the current COVID-19 pandemic, pick-your-own strawberries at McLean Berry Farm south of Buckhorn will proceed this season.
“We got news from the Ontario government that we will be allowed to go ahead with pickyour-own, so we will be offering a social distancing pick your own,” farm manager Erin McLean said.
The farm had to cancel its annual Buckhorn Maplefest, which had been slated over three weekends in March, because of the pandemic.
Logistics to ensure the safety of staff and customers are still being worked out, but McLean said people won’t be picking in rows side by side.
“We have a lot of acreage, so we can spread people out and we can keep it safe,” she said. “We’re just in the midst of figuring out the best ways to do that and we know that it’s going to be a big learning curve.”
Last month, the federal government announced seasonal farm workers coming from foreign countries would be permitted to return to Canada, but must self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival.
With the help of their annual migrant workers, McLean said they’ve been able to harvest their crops.
“We’ve got cousins, brothers, siblings and all sorts of different guys that come together that are actually family, and then they just become our extended summer family,” she said. “We use lots of local labour, but they’re our core harvesting team.”
McLean Berry Farm has a total of 15 migrant workers, some of which have been working
there for nearly 20 years.
“They’re here, they’re reliable, they know what they’re doing, and they’re invaluable. They’re just a great group of guys,” McLean said.
The Mexican workers have been anxiously waiting to come to Canada, she said. “When my dad texted them and said, ‘OK, your flight is arranged,’ they sent back pictures of them standing with their bags, ready to go, because they’re so excited to get on a plane and get here,” McLean said.
The workers have been selfisolating at home to ensure the quarantine in Canada goes smoothly, she said.
“We had the first two guys arrive about three weeks ago now and we have four more arriving tomorrow, and then five guys next week,” McLean said.
Without hiring migrant workers, McLean said the farm wouldn’t be able to create local jobs.
“I think it’s important for people to realize that we wouldn’t be able to create so many local jobs if we didn’t have steady, reliable labour to harvest,” she said.
“It’s one cog in the wheel that makes everything run, that makes it so that we can hire more local labour and so we can continue to be sustainable in every aspect.”
Some people don’t understand the migrant program, McLean said.
“We hire lots of local, seasonal people, but we’ve always had a really hard time finding reliable work for certain positions that are more manual labour,” she said.
McLean said they hired local pickers for years, but could never find enough people who wanted to do the work.
“Or people who would stick it out the entire season. Or people who would show up when it was over 30 degrees, or raining, or whatever the day may bring,” she said.
Before hiring migrant workers, the farm was never able to do this, she said.
“We couldn’t get things harvested, keep things picked clean and the harvest suffered, the crops suffered, our customers suffered, and we as farmers suffered, ” said McLean.
Although people may think farms hire migrant workers because it’s cheaper, McLean said this is not the case.
“It’s actually is a lot more expensive and a lot more work for us to hire them than it would be to hire local staff,” she said. “But in the end, for us, it’s worth it.”
Funded by the Government of Canada/Financé par le Gouvernement du Canada.