That has Lupe Gonzalo worried.

“A lot of places in the field, you don’t have access to shade, to clean and fresh drinking water,” said Gonzalo, a senior staff member with the non-profit Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), who works with farmworkers across several southern states.

For years Gonzalo picked tomatoes, berries, sweet potatoes and other produce, and the heat was always an issue. But her concerns are mounting.

“It’s getting hotter and hotter as climate change continues, and it will continue to be an issue for workers,” Gonzalo, 43, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“We’ve already seen far too many people become ill and even lose their lives. So this is truly an urgent issue,” she said.

While regulations to protect agricultural workers from the heat have been held up by political wrangling, Gonzalo and her colleagues have spearheaded an alternate strategy.

They seek to sidestep the slow and increasingly politicized government machinery and instead appeal directly to consumers and large brands.

Gonzalo and others in the CIW set up the Fair Food Program to strike deals directly with large companies.

The companies pledge to pay fair wages, eliminate sexual harassment and other issues – including increasingly stringent heat protections – in return for Fair Food Program certification for their products.

The heat-related measures include providing shade, having required breaks, training for workers and supervisors, electrolyte-infused water, and the ability to seek care without fear of retaliation.

‘Sourced for good’

The program currently covers tens of thousands of workers in 10 states, through agreements with companies such as Walmart, McDonald’s, Subway and others.

The group also works with farmworkers in Chile and South Africa, and is seeking to expand to other countries.

At national grocery store Whole Foods, for instance, consumers can purchase Fair Food Program-certified sweet potatoes and cut flowers labelled as “Sourced for Good”.

Now the program’s reach is about to expand significantly, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) highlighted its approach for special acknowledgement under a new program aimed at addressing human rights and worker retention on farms.

Last month, the first-ever pilot awards were made under the program, which the Fair Food Program said would see it expand to 13 new states, nearly doubling the number of farms covered.

Tomato grower Jon Esformes, whose company received one of the awards, has implemented the Fair Food Program guidelines on his operations across the United States and Mexico, though the CIW is not present in the latter country.

He said he took the steps after sitting down for the first time to simply talk with CIW leaders about their concerns.

“I found very quickly a group of people that were interested in the same things I was interested in,” he said. “We want to provide a safe and fair workplace, we want to have transparency, we need our workers to feel like it is their farm.”

Protection decades overdue

The U.S. government has dragged its feet on worker heat protections for decades, said Juanita Constible, a senior advocate with the heat solutions program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

About 51 million U.S. workers are at high risk to heat, with less than a fifth of those covered by standards, the think tank has found.

The federal government is only now updating 1970s rules, last week releasing a proposal that would offer heat protections for indoor and outdoor workers, including requiring employers to provide workers with water and shaded or air-conditioned areas above certain temperatures.

Still, a final rule could take years, with recent moves by the Supreme Court potentially further threatening such efforts.

While business associations said they were still reviewing the new proposal, farming and construction lobby groups have criticized early steps in the new process, warning of burdens to businesses.

Yet, Constible said, “the research has kept piling up that heat is not only potentially deadly to workers, but also drastically affects their productivity – billions of work hours lost in the U.S. and around the world because it’s too darn hot.”

The probability of work-related accidents rises by nearly six per cent when temperatures pass 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius), according to research from the Workers Compensation Research Institute published in May.

In the absence of federal action, five states have passed their own laws with a sixth on the horizon, though these vary significantly in scope.

Cities have also taken proactive steps, including in June in Tucson, Arizona, but such efforts have run into political resistance, with new local rules in Florida and Texas halted by state officials.

Constible worries such politicization could continue, which she says underscores the importance of the Fair Food Program’s strategy of appealing to brands and consumers.

“I’m a huge fan. I think it’s been amazingly significant for those workers,” she said.

Farms that can ensure workers feel safe and have access to the tools to keep them healthy have found it easier to entice prospective workers, a UDSA spokesperson said.

That is what Esformes, the CEO of Pacific Tomato Growers, has found amid recent worker shortages.

“When the rest of North America was reeling with lack of workers, we did not have enough jobs for the people who wanted to work for us. And the reason is we’ve created a workplace-of-choice environment,” said Esformes, 61.

He said May saw the hottest temperatures ever recorded in parts of Florida, just as farms were in full harvest, but that Fair Food Program heat guidelines were in operation for the nearly 3,500 workers on the company’s 15,000 acres (6,070 hectares).

“There’s definitely a cost associated with it. Electrolyte powder is not cheap; breaks aren’t cheap,” Esformes said. “But you know what also is not cheap? People getting sick and people feeling like they’re not safe.”

—The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. 

—Updated July 9. Clarifies that CIW is not present in Mexico.

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The federal finance department on Nov. 16 posted its legislative and regulatory proposals for changes to the UHT online and has teed up a consultation period for those proposals. Canadians and other stakeholders and organizations are asked to submit comment via email by Jan. 3, 2024.

The UHT — an annual, one per cent tax on ownership of vacant or “underused” housing in Canada which took effect Jan. 1 last year — has led a clutch of national farm groups to call on Ottawa for a blanket exemption for farmers from having to file a UHT return.

Canadian citizens and permanent residents are exempt from the UHT, but many corporations are not. That means a farm operating via a Canadian corporation or partnership with a residential property is required to file a UHT return each year, even if other exemptions mean no UHT will be owed.

Furthermore, the farm groups said, while some forms of farm worker housing, such as a bunkhouse or mobile home, are exempt, a detached house used for worker housing is not. That rule, they said, amounts to a penalty on higher-quality housing options for farm workers.

Freeland’s proposal would see certain types of corporations and partnerships added to the list of “excluded owners” for the purpose of UHT reporting — which means those entities “would no longer have UHT reporting obligations.”

The proposal would exclude:

• a “specified Canadian corporation” — that is, a Canadian corporation in which foreign individuals/corporations hold less than 10 per cent of votes or equity;
• any partner of a “specified Canadian partnership” — generally, a partnership whose partners are exclusively “Canadian”; and/or
• any trustee of a “specified Canadian trust” — generally, a trust whose beneficiaries are exclusively “Canadian.”

Freeland’s proposal would also set up a new UHT exemption for “residential properties held as a place of residence or lodging for employees.”

That new exemption would cover residential properties anywhere in Canada, except those in a census metropolitan area or “a census agglomeration having 30,000 or more residents.”

Those changes are expected to apply for the 2023 calendar year and subsequent years, the government said.

Not retroactive

Federal Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau tweeted Wednesday on X that the fall economic statement “addresses major irritants” of the UHT, particularly by broadening its definition of “excluded owner.”

That move will “eliminate the need to file (UHT) returns for many Canadian businesses, such as agricultural businesses,” said Bibeau, a former federal agriculture minister.

However, she noted in response to other X users’ replies on Wednesday, the changes will not be retroactive to the 2022 tax year.

UHT filers have been granted two “transitional” extensions to file for the 2022 tax year without penalty. The first, announced in late March, extended the deadline to Oct. 31; then, on Oct. 31, another extension was granted, giving UHT filers until April 30, 2024 to file their 2022 UHT returns.

However, the government said, UHT returns for the 2023 calendar year will also need to be filed by the normal deadline of April 30, 2024, to avoid penalties and interest.

That said, Freeland’s proposed changes to UHT rules also call for reduced penalties for those who fail to file UHT returns by the annual deadline — and would make those reductions retroactive to the 2022 tax year.

Those penalties — now $5,000 per failure for individuals, and $10,000 per failure for corporations — would be cut to $1,000 and $2,000 respectively. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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They study team is “looking for farmers, ranchers, or anyone who works or lives on a farm” to participate, researchers said in a recent notice.

Their study is in the form of a 10- to 15-minute online survey.

Researchers involved in the study say global-level research shows farmers experience high levels of, or elevated risk for, stress, anxiety, depression and/or psychological distress.

Similarly, a national-level survey of 1,132 Canadian farmers found higher levels of stress, anxiety and depression but “lower levels of resilience” compared to the general population.

The sample group for that national survey, however, included just 98 Alberta farmers, or 8.7 per cent of the total sample, while Alberta farmers make up 21.4 per cent of Canada’s farmer population, the researchers said.

The survey would examine what aspects of running a farm are found to be most stressful, how farming stress impacts mental well-being, how farmers cope with stress and whether they experience burnout.

The study is led by Dr. Rebecca Purc-Stephenson, an applied social psychologist and professor at the university’s Augustana campus at Camrose.

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The projection in a new report from Royal Bank is that 40 per cent of our farmers will exit by 2033. While that might create a sense of panic, a lot can change in 10 years and for now farmers are focused on their current workforce — or lack thereof.

Listening to Christina Cleveland (the bank’s director of diversity and inclusion) talk about the new report, which focused on farm labour, brought home a key message: It is critically important to be flexible when hiring employees.

We have talked about this before — about balance and split shifts, about communication and inclusion. Yet the challenges remain.

Farming has failed to find a way to include new concepts in hiring practices. This got me thinking about what a great people leader in agriculture, David McInnes, refers to as “the possible.”

And that possible includes the hiring of older persons, including retirees.

More with Brenda Schoepp: Some are demanding deep and misguided changes to farms

For farmers who are thinking of exiting in the next decade, it might seem a little weird to dip into the senior labor pool. Being older myself, I am very aware of the bias.

But having worked with older employees when I was young, I am also appreciative of the benefits. Not only are older workers willing and reliable, but current research shows they are highly productive. Not everyone on the farm needs to lift 200 pounds or be able to outrun a charging bovine. There are a host of other jobs.

A healthy culture is nurtured through the acceptance of all persons and creating a safe place to explore the potential in the individual and match that with the needs of the farm. This includes older individuals who are willing to fill the gaps, take on odd hours or bring a full-time commitment to the workforce.

What they know is the importance of loyalty, of showing up. And because they have worked for many years, they are mindful of experiencing something that is meaningful.

Farm employers may be afraid of hiring someone with knowledge that is greater than their own or with ideas that are different.

It’s time to park that bias too, because every study ever done on workplace diversity is clear that diverse perspectives are needed to give business its competitive edge. It might be a little uncomfortable to be challenged but we need those rich debates and engaging dialogues.

Those built-in skills and the mental clarity in an older hire have been developed over time with lived experience. That has likely resulted in confidence complemented by a cool head, which is so often needed because of the pressures of farming.

They are young enough to do the job and old enough to know when to ask if they are not sure. After all, there is nothing to prove. The career ladder has been climbed and kicked away from the barn wall. What this demographic looks for is meaning and purpose.

The farm or a food-related business requires many hands — technical, mechanical, agronomical and husbandry. The business may require drivers, bunk readers, folks to make calls or watch markets, enter data, build fences, seed, harvest, cook, provide child care, host tours, do books and add value to products.

Skills are needed in marketing, cleaning barns, candling eggs, milking cows, retailing, training dogs, languages, governance, mowing, moving stock, managing others, running equipment, checking cattle — the list goes on. Having a retired scientist, veterinarian, truck driver, camp cook or accountant may be an asset to the team.

What older workers often bring to the table is common sense and a willingness to work and play together, to learn and to teach, to share and to inspire.

It is true that not every older person is right for the team. But that can’t be known unless the possibility is explored.

Looking at the roles and responsibilities required, there is an opportunity to be creative. What can be changed to accommodate a diverse and flexible workforce? What systems or models could be applied to something as unconventional as hiring from the aging pool?

Most important is ensuring the values of the farm are shared with the team and that each individual, regardless of age, gender, race or background, is appreciated.

Nurturing a culture of care is always a good investment.

Looking at the possible is the type of leadership thinking that is transformative for ourselves and for our businesses. To write off that greying bundle of knowledge because a person is older is a bias and honestly, rather short sighted.

It’s exciting to look at “the possible” through the lens of inclusion and acceptance. To create new pathways for farm, food processing and agri-business workers who have age as their greatest asset is surely a solution for our future.

It is a great challenge to remove barriers and to reconstruct the farm to meet the needs of the employee, and one that ultimately benefits the team and our community.

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The program is now accepting applications.

It offers support for 50 per cent of wages to a maximum of $14,000 to agriculture employers who hire Canadian youth. Employers that hire youth who face employment barriers will be eligible for 80 per cent of the cost of salaries and benefits and may be eligible for an additional $5,000 to address specific obstacles to employment.

Applications are open for a limited time. Employers can apply until March 27 for their project to be considered.

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Police in Ontario said on Friday they had obtained information in November that migrant men and women were being exploited for their work.

The investigation — done in partnership with the Canada Border Services Agency — revealed that “an organized group of criminals enticed the victims into Canada with promises of good work and a better life,” a police statement said.

“They ended up living in deplorable conditions and were driven to work sites in private buses which were in a state of disrepair.”

The migrants were “mistreated, abused and exploited” for manual labour at farms, factories and warehouses in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), police said.

Police said the charges follow search warrants executed Feb. 8 at properties in Toronto, Mississauga, Vaughan and East Gwillimbury, Ont.

Facilities were set up that day to provide food, shelter, medical attention, information and support services, police said, adding that of the 64 people, 53 “accepted the offer of help and continue to be supported.”

Migrants described “dozens of people sleeping on mattresses on the floor,” as well as “coercion and control” and sexual assault, said Detective Sergeant Gary McBride.

“To see the state of the workers’ living conditions, considering the promises that were made to them, was heartbreaking,” York police chief Jim MacSween said in a release.

Police arrested five people, two Canadian citizens and three Mexicans, and issued warrants for two others, they said. Charges include human trafficking, sexual assault and working for a criminal organization.

Canada has become increasingly reliant on migrant workers to work in factories, farms and elsewhere. Advocates argue that even when they are brought to Canada legally, they are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse in part because of their precarious immigration status.

— Anna Mehler Paperny is a Reuters reporter in Toronto. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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Chunli Zhao, 66, the lone suspect in Monday’s massacre at two mushroom farms in the seaside town of Half Moon Bay, was to be formally presented with seven counts of premeditated murder and a single count of attempted murder in a criminal complaint filed by local prosecutors.

The hearing was held at the San Mateo County Superior Court in nearby Redwood City, California.

The complaint against Zhao also alleged “special circumstances” accusing Zhao of “personally and intentionally” shooting to kill.

California law declares that defendants convicted of murder with “special circumstances” can be eligible for the death penalty, but Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019 declared a moratorium on executions. The state has not executed a condemned inmate since 2006.

Also on Wednesday, U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris, a California native, planned to travel to the Los Angeles suburb of Monterey Park, site of the first of the recent deadly rampages. She was expected to meet with some families of the 11 people who were fatally shot in a dance hall on Saturday night by a gunman who later took his own life.

Coming in quick succession, the two shooting sprees left California reeling from one of the bloodiest spates of mass gun violence in decades in a state with some of the strictest firearm laws in the country.

Zhao was taken into custody on Monday evening outside a sheriff’s station, where police said he had driven shortly after the attack on farm workers.

The precise motive for the shooting remained unclear. Zhao had been employed by one of the growers, Mountain Mushroom Farm, and had resided at the property along with some other employees, according to a spokesperson for California Terra Gardens, which owns the farm. Authorities said early evidence indicated the bloodshed stemmed from a workplace grievance. The second crime scene, Concord Farms, is about a mile away.

Immigrant victims

Half Moon Bay, a community of about 12,000 residents south of San Francisco, is home to both a luxury resort and a low-income farming community. The shooting cast a renewed spotlight on hardships faced by the area’s farm workers, many of them immigrants from Latin America and Asia who often live in squalid labour encampments and toil long hours under poor conditions for extremely low pay.

The San Mateo County Coroner named six of the seven deceased victims on Wednesday and listed their ages as between 43 and 73. Charging documents listed the dead as Yetao Bing, Qizhong Cheng, Jingzhi Lu, Zhishen Liu, Aixiang Zhang, Jose Romero and Marciano Martinez Jimenez.

Jose Romero’s brother Pedro was also injured in the attack and was hospitalized as of Tuesday, the brothers’ cousin Jose Juarez told Reuters. Juarez said the brothers had immigrated from Mexico and worked at Mountain Mushroom Farm.

Two days before the Half Moon Bay killings, another gunman 615 km to the south opened fire at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, a club frequented mostly by older patrons of Asian descent in Monterey Park.

Eleven people died and nine were injured in Saturday night’s gunfire, which some survivors and bystanders said they initially mistook for fireworks as the predominantly Asian-American community was observing the start of the Lunar New Year.

Authorities said the assailant, Huu Can Tran, 72, drove a short time later to a second dance hall in the neighbouring town of Alhambra. There, the club’s operator disarmed him before he could open fire.

The next morning, Tran shot himself to death behind the wheel of his getaway vehicle as police closed in on him south of Los Angeles, leaving investigators with few clues as to his motive.

— Reporting for Reuters by Alexandra Ulmer in Half Moon Bay, Calif.; additional reporting by Tim Reid, Gabriella Borter, Rich McKay, Brendan O’Brien, Brad Brooks, Jonathan Allen, Joseph Ax, Dan Whitcomb, Eric Beech, Omar Younis and Timothy Gardner; writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles.

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Best known for its classroom education program, Ag for Life will distribute two types of grants aimed at helping reduce a labour shortage in the ag and food sectors.

One grant, of up to $40,000, is for organizations that can “increase public awareness of agricultural career opportunities through online advertising campaigns.”

The other type of grant (up to $25,000) is for organizations that provide “human resources training to support worker retention.” Applications can be made through the Ag for Life website until March 2024.

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But they’re facing a new challenge — getting chemical delivered to the aircraft.

Calvin Murray, founder of Early Bird Air near Strathmore, is one of the old-timers of aerial spraying. He’s had his share of close calls and challenges. Now his company, like other agriculture businesses, is caught in the downdraft of Canada’s post-pandemic labour shortage, and there’s no end in sight.

“It’s just a nightmare,” said the 42-year veteran commercial pilot, noting mid-April is when he needs employees on site. “We need truck drivers and other spray guys and ground crew for both airplanes and ground rigs. I have my pilots and my main guy that looks after the ground rigs.”

Murray’s biggest challenge is finding Class 1 drivers. He placed job advertisements in January and received one application in two months. In the end he hired a 55-year-old long-haul trucker who was out of job due to pandemic border regulations.

“So that’s how lucky I am,” he said. “She showed up and she’s still working for me.”

Murray said he knows of several businesses in his area that have failed to find Class 1 drivers. One business erected a large sign with flashing lights along the Trans-Canada Highway to attract applicants — with no luck.

Licence obstacles

Early Bird Air receives job applications from Albertans and those living overseas, but many applicants don’t respond when contacted. Murray said some people don’t like the commute from Calgary or starting work at 5 a.m. Others don’t like working into the evening.

“I think it’s a lot of things like attitude, and the government pays them too much to sit on their butt,” he said, adding one of his hires used marijuana on site.

“I don’t know what the answer really is, but there’s nobody out there who wants to work. I had one guy from the city that we took a chance on. He lasted a day and a half and quit. He said ‘it’s too hard from me’ — and it’s not a hard job. It’s a lot of hours but we pay good money too. It’s a nightmare.”

Early Bird Air has deployed a new round of job ads, but applications are few.

No-shows

“We had a couple people — five last year that said they were interested and coming, and they just didn’t show up,” he said.

“I think they had to actively be looking for work and they said they couldn’t find work, so they just took the government money to stay home. But I think that has backfired because I’m hearing now that people must pay it back. Not a good situation.”

It’s important to have quality employees that can be trusted with heavy equipment such as combines and tractors, said Konstapel, who usually looks for help around harvest.

“You can’t just find anybody. You’ve got to have somebody who can operate technology. There’s basically a computer screen in front of you and you need to be able to use that. These combines are $700,000.”

The feedlot business, already plagued with high input costs and other problems, is also in a labour flat-spin, said Jacob Beuckert, chair of the Alberta Cattle Feeders’ Association. He owns two feedlots in southern Alberta and needs Class 1 drivers, mechanics and labourers. He feels like he’s in a bidding war with other industries. Help-wanted ads have yielded few responses.

“Probably what’s the most scary is bad government policy,” he said. “When we look at methane-reduction targets, reduction in fertilizer, and all these things — that’s probably what keeps us up at night more than anything. Those are just things we can’t control.”

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While Canadian provinces and territories set housing standards, the federal government is responsible for ensuring tens of thousands of migrant farmworkers have adequate accommodation and their employers comply with quarantine rules.

Employment and Social Development Canada has been carrying out reviews of living spaces and workplaces. The vast majority of these inspections since April 2020 have been done virtually. In 2020, Canada found 99.6 per cent of inspected employers compliant; in 2021, it was 100 per cent.

Auditor General Karen Hogan’s office warned of inspection problems in late 2020 but things worsened, the audit found, with 88 per cent of quarantine inspections deemed “problematic” compared with 73 per cent the previous year.

“I think they had a lot of information and really should have acted on it, and I am disappointed that the situation didn’t improve,” Hogan said in an interview.

“It’s a pretty big failure.”

The COVID-19 pandemic hit migrant workers hard as many lived in congregate settings that fueled transmission. In light of the pandemic and recent wildfires and floods in British Columbia, Mexico is trying to change the conditions of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program to better protect workers.

Eighty per cent of the COVID-19 outbreak inspections the auditor reviewed sat inactive, even as they required time-sensitive responses to ensure worker safety. Sometimes inspectors had information indicating noncompliance with pandemic regulations but labeled employers as compliant anyway, the audit said.

Employment and Social Development Canada agreed with the audit’s recommendations.

“The Temporary Foreign Worker Program was not designed to deal with a pandemic. As a result, rules, procedures, and training had to be developed in real time,” the department said in a statement included in the audit.

Canada’s $68.8 billion agricultural sector relies heavily on migrant workers. More than 79,000 migrants came to work in Canada’s agricultural sector between March 2020 and June 2021.

But Hogan said migrant workers are also “human beings who are relying on their employer to give them accommodations.”

— Anna Mehler Paperny reports for Reuters from Toronto.

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