Farmers can still access isolation support programs
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
British Columbia’s government ended its provincial quarantine program for seasonal agricultural temporary foreign workers last week.
The government officially lifted the quarantine program on March 31, citing the easing of federal travel restrictions and many incoming workers being fully vaccinated.
Going forward, however, the employer will have the responsibility of ensuring a temporary worker meets federal entry requirements.
“Arriving workers will travel directly to their farms and it will be the employer’s responsibility to ensure federal quarantine requirements are met for those who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated,” a March 30 bulletin from the ministry of agriculture, food and fisheries says.
B.C. farmers can still access support to cover these costs.
The B.C. Farm Worker Safe Isolation Program will be available until March 2023.
This program provides producers with up to $3,000 per worker, based on a 14-day isolation period, to cover associated costs.
More than 15,000 temporary workers went through the isolation program with 233 testing positive for COVID-19 while in quarantine.
That number represents about 1.5 per cent of workers.
“This shows the important role the program played in preventing workers with symptoms from travelling to farms and communities or causing larger outbreaks, as well as preventing associated economic losses and interruptions to the B.C. food supply,” the ministry’s bulletin says.
Farmers welcome the idea their workers won’t have to quarantine anymore.
Rather than waiting two weeks, the workers can get started right away, said Dan Ponchet, owner of Dan’s Farm & Country Market in Saanichton, B.C.
“It’s a big relief that they don’t have to do it anymore,” he said, CHEK News reported. “Now I can have two extra weeks of working out of the guys and they’re happy with that too, they don’t want to sit in a hotel room for two weeks.”
British Columbia employs the second-largest number of temporary agricultural workers in Canada.
The province had 8,564 seasonal agricultural workers in 2020, Stats Canada says. Only Ontario had more, with 22,834.