Workers can receive test results in between 24 and 48 hours
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
The federal government needs to implement a COVID-19 rapid testing pilot program for international farm workers entering the country, the federal Conservative ag critic said.
Canadian farms welcome more than 60,000 temporary international farm workers each year to help harvest crops like fruits and vegetables. Most of those workers spend time on Ontario farms.
But under the Quarantine Act, anyone coming into Canada must self-isolate for 14 days.
Those two weeks can be critical, especially during vegetable harvest. That’s why a rapid testing pilot is necessary, Lianne Rood said.
“I don’t want to see a repeat of last spring where some workers tested positive and all workers on the entire farm had to be quarantined, leading to a farmer losing an entire cucumber crop,” Rood told Farms.com. “These (workers) are a critical pillar to food production in Canada.”
Lianne Rood
Workers will likely begin arriving in Ontario in January to prepare for the greenhouse season.
Early in 2021 is the perfect time to implement the testing program, Rood said.
“We don’t have all (the workers) coming at once and they do arrive in small cohorts,” she said. “These folks come on direct flights from the country of origin.”
The testing pilot program could work similar to a testing program operating at the Calgary International Airport, Rood said.
A person arriving from outside Canada is tested for free at the airport and self-isolates until he or she receives their results, which can take between one and two days.
If the test comes back negative, that person is allowed to be out in the community while following public health measures.
Six or seven days later, the traveler takes another COVID test. If that test comes back negative, that person is again allowed to be out in the community while following necessary guidelines.
The infrastructure around international farm workers makes a similar pilot program a good option for Canada’s ag sector, Rood said.
“The workers come in cohorts and live in that cohort, which isn’t much different than a family of six living together,” she said. “If they access to this kind of testing program, they can get to work as soon as possible, and farmers don’t risk losing any crops.”
Industry organizations are in favour of measures that benefit the sector and ensure the health and safety of everyone involved.
“Anything that makes (working environments) safer for the workers, the farmers and the community, I’d support,” Ken Forth, president of Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services, told Farms.com. “I’d like to see details of this kind of program, but if it makes things better, I see no reason why it wouldn’t be a good idea.”
Other industry representatives have also voiced support for such a program, Rood said.
Rood proposed the idea of the testing program to the federal minister of health in the House of Commons on Nov. 26.
Healthcare responsibilities fall on provincial governments, but Minister Hadju said she’d be happy to discuss this kind of program with Christine Elliott, Ontario’s minister of health.
Farms.com has contacted Minister Elliott’s office for comment on if the federal health minister has communicated with her about a rapid testing program, but at the time the article was posted, a response had not yet been received.