Airport initiative boosts vaccination acceptance among agricultural migrant workers May 11, 2021
Temporary foreign workers arriving at Toronto s Pearson Airport are now greeted in their own language and provided COVID-19 vaccination resources that are culturally appropriate. Photo courtesy of OFVGA
Efforts to translate public health resources into different languages have been key to the growing success of vaccination efforts for agricultural migrant workers arriving at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.
First launched in early April by the Ontario provincial government, the province has offered voluntary vaccinations to 4,300 incoming farm workers as of last week. Hired by Ontario farms through the Temporary Foreign Worker program, hundreds of workers have reportedly received their first shot. Exact numbers were not available from the Ontario Ministry of Health.
Access to Labour in 2021
Event Type
Access to Labour in 2021 (3 presentations)
Speaker: Stefan Larass, OFVGA
1) HR Resources for Farms, Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst, Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Council (CAHRC)
This presentation will provide useful information, tools and resources to help employers with the complexities of staff management responsibilities.
2) Labour Update for 2021 (SAWP & Ontario), Ken Forth, FARMS
Ken will cover off updates on the 2021 SAWP/TFWP program and other relevant labour developments the Labour Issues Coordinating Committee is involved in.
3) Summary of Available Resources for Growers, Stefan Larrass, OFVGA
This presentation will provide an update on resources available to growers to support their efforts to manage workplace safety in the pandemic.
In the 1990s, sweet cherries were a fledgling crop in B.C. with only $500,000 in annual sales. There weren’t many varieties in the province, and B.C. was locked in competition with Washington state, the biggest producer of sweet cherries in North America. And it was losing the battle.
But when the research centre, which has now bred 80 per cent of the sweet cherry varieties being grown around the world, released the Staccato variety for commercial planting in the 2000s, it changed the game for the province.
With a deeply red skin and sweet taste, Staccato cherries are not ripe for picking until August much later than the harvest season for popular varieties from Washington state. This opened up a whole new market for B.C.’s sweet cherries and transformed them into a multimillion-dollar industry. Today, almost all of Canada’s sweet cherries are grown in the Okanagan.