Fruit and vegetable growers working to keep Ontario farm workers safe

Ontario’s fruit and vegetable farmers are devastated by the recent deaths of three Ontario farm workers from COVID-19 and are very concerned about the recent outbreaks that have affected Ontario’s farms, dedicated employees and the sector’s ability to produce food for Ontarians.

Seasonal farm workers play an essential role on Ontario’s fruit and vegetable farms. The federal government created the seasonal agricultural worker program (SAWP) in 1966 and many farmers have been welcoming the same international workers for years (even generations). Farmers care about the health and well-being of farm workers and are committed to doing everything possible to protect their health and safety. Part of this is ensuring that farm workers are treated with respect and dignity, are paid fairly, have access to health care and benefits, and importantly, are safely housed.

Farms, and employee living and working conditions, continue to be regularly inspected by multiple agencies and government. Seasonal agricultural workers have the same labour, human rights and social protections as all other Canadian farm workers. Ontario’s farmers also support a path to citizenship for workers who want to be become a permanent resident.

“As we learn more about recent outbreaks on local farms, our farmers and our sector are working to quickly remedy issues and prevent them from happening elsewhere,” said Bill George, Chair of the OFVGA. “While we don’t have all the answers and know there might be more challenges ahead, what we have learned is that some recent outbreaks were associated with the use of unregulated local recruitment agencies whose contract workers moved from farm to farm.” So, farmers are taking action by:

• Calling on all fruit and vegetable farmers to limit the movement of local temporary contract workers from one farm to another to reduce the risk of community spread. This also means separating local and international guest workers to decrease the risk of infection. • Helping to inform workers about available testing and doing our part to make sure workers’ legal rights for job protection and income protection (e.g. WSIB) are respected if they have be isolated. • Continuing to work with all levels of government to provide COVID-19 health and safety training guidelines for farmers. Growers can do their part but they can’t do it alone. Government and local health authorities are also key to success. That’s why the sector is calling on government and local health authorities to:

• Deploy resources to enforce compliance with local health unit orders to restrict movement of local temporary contract workers between fruit and vegetable farms.

• Ensure that temporary contract agencies comply with Canadian law. This includes being held to the same ethical and legal standards as any regular farm employer.

• Facilitate the availability of province-wide proactive testing of all agri-food employees through expanded deployment of on-farm testing resources.

• Provide financial support and develop workable solutions for farms that are ordered to shut down and for farmers facing economic hardship as a result of such a shut-down.

• Ensure workers that must isolate, even though they test negative for COVID-19, have access to wage compensation. “The OFVGA looks forward to seeing progress on having unregulated agencies held to the same ethical and legal standards as the federal regulated seasonal agricultural worker program,” stated George.

“We all have a responsibility to do the best that we can to keep people safe during this pandemic and there is no tolerance for employers who don’t follow the rules when it comes to public health and worker safety.”

During these challenging times Ontario’s farmers are committed to working together to protect the health and safety of agricultural employees so that they can continue to ensure that locally grown fruits and vegetables are available year round.

The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association is the voice of Ontario’s 3,500 fruit and vegetable producers on issues affecting the horticulture sector. Visit www.ofvga.org.