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A helping hand from away – seasonal and temporary foreign workers in Canada
Fruit and vegetable farmers in particular rely on many people to help them plant, manage, and harvest their crops; most bruise or damage easily, so they still need to be cultivated and picked by hand. Even though robots are being developed to harvest crops or scout for pests and diseases, those tools aren’t readily available yet.
Canadian farmers who can’t nd enough local employees rely on guest workers from other countries to work on their farms. They come to Canada under various programs, like the Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Program (SAWP) and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) program. These programs are essential because on-farm agriculture has the highest
job vacancy rate of any industry83.
This circumstance is largely due to the seasonal nature of the work, as well as the fact that most Canadians live in urban centres, far from the farms where workers are desperately needed.
The solution to these challenges has been, in part, the SAWP, which was established more than 50 years ago to bring workers from Mexico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and other Eastern Caribbean countries to work
on Canadian fruit and vegetable farms. Workers stay for the growing season, and
TFWP employee harvesting mushrooms
go home to their families for the winter months.
Strict rules imposed by both the workers’ home countries and the Canadian government must be followed by both farmers and workers in order to be part of SAWP. Workers on the program have the same workplace protections as Canadian workers, including minimum wage, health care, and workplace insurance coverage, and access to Employment Insurance, from the moment they arrive in Canada.
Many of these workers have been
coming to the same farms for years and have become highly-skilled in these specialized tasks, and the money they earn helps take care of their families
and support their communities. In
some cases, they’ve been able to set up businesses at home that create local jobs and send their children to university. Without their help, many Canadian farmers wouldn’t be able to grow the local fruits and vegetables that we love.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many international workers were unable to
get to Canada to work for the season. Although farmers tried to hire local workers to replace them, many crops were either not planted at all, or could not be harvested, as in the case of perennial crops like asparagus or strawberries.
Career Pro le
Seasonal Agricultural Worker
Trinidad Vargas Sanchez
Trinidad Sanchez has been coming to Canada from Mexico as a Seasonal Agricultural Worker for 31 years, always returning to Holland Acres, a farm owned by the Van Luyk family in the Holland Marsh region of Ontario. He arrives each April, returns home in mid-November and now leads the team of employees that helps
to grow the farm’s crop of carrots, onions, parsnips and beets. He’s now accompanied annually by his son Eddie and son-in-law Juan. He says that work in Canada has given his family a lot of opportunities. Even though he misses his family when he’s away, he looks forward to returning to Canada each year.
SAWP employee harvesting apples
Chapter 5: Food security, eating local
Nancy French Photography Nancy French Photography and the cost of food 37