Food Insecurity in the Time of Covid
"I actually stay up at night worrying about this one [the place of migrant workers in Canada, and the institutionalization and need of food banks]. I don't have an answer to it. And we already have a food insecurity problem in this country that has been massively exacerbated by COVID." "And I say that as a consumer who benefits from economic efficiency [built into the Canadian food supply system] because I don't pay much for my food and I'm very happy not to and that's a real asset of Canada, but there is a negative consequence of that. What we're seeing is symptomatic of a situation that squeezes the margins at all levels and then leaves vulnerable people and vulnerable aspects [in the system] open for exploitation." Evan Fraser, head, Arrell Food Institute in Ontario, University of Guelph
"We are concerned for what's to come. Please keep in mind that food bank use has remained at high levels following the 2008 recession [food bank use has never returned to pre-2008 levels]." Kirstin Beardsley, Food Banks Canada
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| Foreign workers harvest watermelons on farm in Ontario. Postmedia |
"Of course, wages are a big part of the conversation. But what migrant farm workers are talking about is that housing is being controlled, their inability to speak up about exploitative conditions, their inability to access health care. Those aren't just about wage pressures. Those are about the immigration system that has tied those workers to employers, in part, yes, to keep wages low." "A perfect system is one where everyone in the country has full and permanent immigration status. That doesn't mean they have to stay, but permanent residency is the mechanism through which you get your rights" "Nobody wants to do that work [farm work] in those conditions and for those wages, including migrants. That's why they're organizing. Look, our entire position is that we don't want an immigration system that has temporary labour." Syed Hussan, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change
"Their current employer will be investigated [when migrant workers register a complaint of mistreatment], subject to fines, banned from hiring foreign workers and/or face a possible criminal investigation." Employment Canada spokesperson
"You can't tell me that working at a local coffee shop is paying anybody $20 an hour. I don't think it [the struggle to fill worker vacancies on farms] can be framed entirely about a wage issue." "The consolidation of the power in the grocery business in Canada, that's a very interesting component in all this [in reference to Walmart Canada's notice of offsetting costs of a multi-billion infrastructure investment through charging extra fees to suppliers]." "Those suppliers, who are the ones who buy raw product from farmers, they're getting squeezed, so you can be guaranteed that that squeeze is going to be felt down the line [higher food costs passed on to consumers]." "Anyone I know who uses temporary foreign workers on their farm, they treat their workers the way you would treat someone you want to come back to work the next day and do a good job." Mary Robinson, president, Canadian Federation of Agriculture
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Canada’s food supply chain under strain CBC |
According to the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council, 59,500 of 227,194 farm workers are temporary foreign workers, an increase from 2014 when 43,500 farm workers were represented by migrant labourers. About 16,500 farm jobs were left unfilled back in 2017 leading to an estimated $2.5 billion in lost sales. Representing about 13,000 workers in the agricultural sector, United Food and Commercial Workers Canada calls for changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker program, recommending union representation become a mandated condition of the program to protect the "most precarious and vulnerable worker population" in the country.
There is no lack of understanding that making changes to ensure paying the "full societal and environmental cost of food" would translate to significantly elevated wages, improving conditions under which farm workers live and work who travel to Canada yearly under the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, and that inevitably would lead to rising costs to food consumers at a time when farmers themselves operate under razor-thin margins of profit.
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| Farm workers pick and pack radishes in West Windsor, Ont. Postmedia |
About ten to 15 percent of the population pre-pandemic lived with food insecurity, having to make use of food banks to make ends meet their daily nutritional requirements. Inadequate access to food would ensure that the numbers struggling to put food on the table would increase. Since the onset of the pandemic, food banks have been reporting demand surges. There was a 200 percent rise in visitors to the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto during May and June, as an example. Leading the federal government to pledge $50 million to subsidize the purchase of surplus food Canadian farms produce for redistribution through food banks.
It is a problem of considerable proportions -- how to take action to ensure that everyone in the food system is fairly compensated without substantially increasing food costs beyond what consumers are able to manage without sending more people to food banks. "That is a massive social undertaking", commented Kirstin Beardsley of Food Banks Canada, its chief network services officer, worrying that a 30 percent increase in visitors would materialize in attempting to fairly balance everyone's recognized entitlements. The Canadian food system, points out Mr. Fraser "rewards economic efficiency" over practically every other value at each level of the supply chain -- from farmers to processors to retailers -- in its obsession with maintaining low food prices.
Reports of unsafe working and living conditions on farms along with COVID-19 outbreaks within the migrant worker community includes poor access to food, restrictions on leaving the property, and wages withheld, and then if workers complain, threats intimidate them and punishments like being sent back to their home country can arise. Complaints by workers from Mexico and the Caribbean about racism, threats, surveillance, poor access to food and dirty cramped bunkhouses have filtered through to the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.
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Irrespective of whether workers are Canadian or migrant workers, the average wage works out to between $13 and $15 hourly; $15.05 for general workers, $14.05 for nursery and greenhouse workers, and $13.80 for harvesting labourers, according to Statistics Canada's Job Vacancy and Wage survey. Annual farm workers' salaries average between $16,701 and $24,237. Mary Robinson of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture contends that farms cannot attract sufficient numbers of Canadians at wages on offer, the seasonal jobs are short and physically demanding, so they turn to temporary foreign workers to fill the gap.
The "cost-price" squeeze; the steady rise in input costs even as commodity prices for agriculture products trend downward is one that farmers have struggled with for decades. An increase of any note in labour costs would force many farms to shut down, given that farmers are unable to pass their cost increases to the commodities market, points out Ms.Robinson. "It is a sizable investment, so I just don't understand how anybody can make that investment and then mistreat workers. It's not good business sense and it's not the human thing to do either."
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posted by Pieface @ 7:13 PM
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