Ontario Migrant Farm Workers Hit by COVID-19Migrant farmers at Greenhill Produce in Kent Bridge, in southwestern Ontario, were reportedly the first to have experienced an outbreak of COVID-19 on an Ontario farm. Greenhill Produce is a hydroponic operation specialized in growing a variety of bell peppers. The outbreak there was first reported on April 28 with the number of confirmed cases rising steadily, reaching 100 on May 21.
Meanwhile at a greenhouse in Leamington, another 14 migrant contract workers, also included in the numbers reported by the Windsor-Essex Public Health Unit, were reported as testing positive. On May 25, the Windsor-Essex Medical Officer of Health announced in his daily update that 33 of the 36 new confirmed cases were farm workers linked to "many" of the 170 agri-food facilities in the area. He said those affected were both migrant workers living in residences attached to farms and local workers living in the community. Elsewhere, the Haldimand-Norfolk Public Heath Unit has reported eight temporary farm workers have tested positive for COVID-19 and has expressed concerns about the viability of the region's medical facilities given the large number of migrant farm workers employed in that region. In discussing the Greenhill Produce outbreak, Chris Ramsaroop, speaking on behalf of Justice for Migrant Workers which advocates for foreign contract workers, said, "This is something that was preventable." He said "For the past couple of weeks, we've been trying to sound the alarm about the spread of the pandemic on farms." Ramsaroop is calling for increased inspections and the regulation of bunkhouse-type housing and greater access to personal protective equipment for farm workers to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Migrant farm workers, on arrival in Canada, are put into quarantine for 14 days. That means those who have become infected, contracted the disease here. Bunkhouse living conditions are a significant contributing factor. While governments at the federal and provincial levels say they have taken appropriate measures and provided financial assistance to farmers to improve living conditions to minimize the spread of COVID-19 infection amongst these workers, Justice for Migrant Workers posted a video recently, available here, which shows these workers are still being warehoused in large, contained spaces.
These migrant workers are highly skilled, very productive and dedicated workers. Canadian agriculture depends on them. The first thing that is needed to protect these workers is to recognize that they are vital to the Canadian economy, an important part of the Canadian working class, and to provide these workers with permanent resident and citizenship status. (With files from Chatham Daily News, Chatham Voice, CTV)
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The Chatham-Kent
Public Health Unit reported 14 new cases on May
15, bringing the total at Greenhill to 81
confirmed cases -- 78 of them migrant workers
living in bunkhouse conditions and the other
three Chatham-Kent residents. That amounted to
two-thirds of Chatham-Kent's 121 total confirmed
COVID-19 cases at the time. The 100 confirmed
cases reported on May 21 include 13 "contract
workers" brought in daily from Leamington where
they are housed in hotels and motels and are
currently self-isolating. Their cases are not
included in the numbers reported by the
Chatham-Kent Health Unit, but by the
neighbouring Windsor-Essex Public Health Unit. 
It is reported
that Ontario farms rely on some 20,000 migrant
workers each year. Canada contracts about 60,000
migrant farm workers per year in total. They
come from the Caribbean, Mexico and
elsewhere. They prepare vineyards, orchards and
fields. They plant and harvest. They also work
in more industrial settings, such as
greenhouses, hydroponic farms, and mushroom
factories.