Rollins said the administration wants a 100 per cent American workforce and suggested some people receiving government aid could replace immigrant workers.

“Ultimately, the answer on this is automation, also some reform within the current governing structure. And then also, when you think about, there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America,” she said at a press conference outside the Department of Agriculture headquarters.

Most adults on Medicaid work full- or part-time or are not working due to illness or disability, caregiving, or school attendance, according to a May brief by the health policy organization KFF.

The farm sector has warned that mass deportation of farm workers would disrupt the U.S. food supply. In June, the Trump administration signaled it might pause raids on some farm worksites. It has since reversed course.

Trump’s tax-cut and spending bill, passed on July 3, introduces work requirements for Medicaid, which the Congressional Budget Office has said is expected to leave nearly 12 million people uninsured.

Later on Tuesday, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer said at a cabinet meeting at the White House that the Department of Labor had developed a new office to work with farmers and ranchers, but did not provide more details.

The Labor Department oversees the H-2A program, which provides seasonal visas for agricultural workers.

Farmland owned by ‘adversaries’

Rollins also said at the press conference that the USDA will curb farmland purchases by “foreign adversaries,” including China, and terminate agreements and contracts with people and entities from those countries.

Asked about land already owned by Chinese-owned companies Syngenta and Smithfield Foods, Rollins said the administration is still considering its options.

“You’ll likely see an executive order on this very soon from the White House and we’ll be looking at multiple different authorities within the federal government to begin to claw that back,” Rollins said.

In 2023, Arkansas ordered Syngenta to sell 160 acres (65 hectares) of farmland under a state law barring some foreign entities from acquiring or holding land.

Twenty-six states limit or ban foreign businesses, governments or nationals from owning private farmland, according to the National Agricultural Law Center, and some of those laws have faced legal challenges.

Only about 3.4 per cent of U.S. farmland is owned by foreign entities, and Canada owns the largest share, about 30 per cent, according to the USDA.

Rollins said she will be a member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, “as of this afternoon.” The interagency body reviews foreign investments in the U.S. for national security threats.

Bipartisan lawmakers have supported limits on ownership of farmland by foreign countries, citing national security concerns.

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership told field office heads during a call on Monday that it would roll back a directive issued last week that largely paused raids on the businesses, the former officials said, requesting anonymity to discuss the new guidance.

ICE officials were told a daily quota to make 3,000 arrests per day — 10 times the average last year during former President Joe Biden’s administration – would remain in effect, the former officials said. ICE field office heads had raised concerns they could not meet the quota without raids at the businesses that had been exempted, one of the sources said.

It was not clear why last week’s directive was reversed. Some ICE officials left the call confused, and it appeared they would still need to tread carefully with raids on the previously exempted businesses, the former officials said.

‘No safe spaces’

U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said ICE would continue to make arrests at worksites but did not respond to questions about the new guidance.

“There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ICE’s efforts,” she said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Washington Post first reported the reversal.

Trump took office in January aiming to deport record numbers of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. ICE doubled the pace of arrests under Trump compared with last year but still remains far below what would be needed to deport millions of people.

Top White House aide Stephen Miller ordered ICE in late May to dramatically increase arrests to 3,000 per day, leading to intensified raids that prominently targeted some businesses.

‘Chaos and confusion since the beginning’

Trump said in a Truth Social post on Thursday that farms and hotel businesses had been suffering from the ramped up enforcement but also said, without evidence or explanation, that criminals were trying to fill those jobs.

ICE issued guidance that day pausing most immigration enforcement at agricultural, hospitality and food processing businesses. But in another Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump called on ICE to target the Democratic strongholds of Los Angeles, Chicago and New York and to use the full extent of their authority to increase deportations.

A White House official said Trump was keeping a promise to deliver the country’s single largest mass deportation program.

“Anyone present in the United States illegally is at risk of deportation,” the White House official said.

Deborah Fleischaker, who held senior roles at both DHS and ICE during Biden’s presidency, said the shifting ICE guidance reflects broader turmoil at the agency since Trump took office. The White House has ousted multiple ICE leaders as it pressed for more arrests.

“It has been chaos and confusion since the beginning,” she said.

Farmers push back

The intensified ICE enforcement after Miller’s late May order renewed long-running concerns among farmers about ICE operations targeting their workforce. Nearly half the nation’s approximately 2 million farm workers lack legal status, according to the departments of Labor and Agriculture, as do many dairy and meatpacking workers.

Farm industry fears escalated last week when ICE detentions and arrests of workers were reported at California farms, a Nebraska meatpacking plant and a New Mexico dairy.

Livestock and restaurant sector representatives said on a press call organized by the American Business Immigration Coalition on Tuesday that raids make operations more difficult in their heavily immigrant-dependent industries.

“The people pushing for these raids that target farms and feedyards and dairies have no idea how farms operate,” said Matt Teagarden, CEO of the Kansas Livestock Association.

Michael Marsh, CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, said farm groups had not had enough input into the administration’s decision-making so far on immigration enforcement in agriculture.

Marsh said he had not received responses from Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins, Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials to a letter sent last week requesting a meeting.

“We’ve got a serious issue if we have almost a million of our workers that are going to be subject to deportation,” he said. “Because if that’s the case, and they are picked up and they are gone, we can’t fill those positions.”

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The order to scale back U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids came from Trump himself, the person familiar with the matter said, and appears to rein in a late-May demand by top White House aide Stephen Miller for more aggressive sweeps.

Trump was not aware of the extent of the enforcement push and “once it hit him, he pulled it back,” the person said.

New orders to come

The new directive, issued on Thursday, still allows for investigations into serious crimes such as human trafficking. The New York Times first reported the guidance.

Trump took office in January pledging to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. While Trump framed the effort around removing serious criminals, thousands of suspected immigration offenders with no criminal records have been swept up in recent months.

ICE’s more aggressive tactics – including raids in Los Angeles – have sparked protests and pushback from Democrats. Some Republican lawmakers have called on the administration to focus on criminal offenders.

Trump said on Thursday that he would issue an order soon to address the effects of his immigration crackdown on the country’s farm and hotel industries, which rely heavily on immigrant labor.

“We will follow the president’s direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement when asked about the new ICE guidance.

Farm groups skeptical of promised changes

The White House pointed to a Trump social media post on Thursday where he said farms and hospitality businesses were concerned the administration’s far-reaching immigration enforcement was taking away “very good, long time workers” and promising changes.

U.S. farm industry groups have long wanted Trump to spare their sector from mass deportations, which could upend a food supply chain dependent on immigrants.

The United Farm Workers union said on Friday that it was skeptical the new directive would help workers without legal status. The group said it had calls from members about immigration arrests even after the new directive was issued.

“As long as Border Patrol and ICE are allowed to sweep through farm worker communities making chaotic arrests…they are still hunting down farm workers,” the union said in a statement.

— Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco, Ismail Shakil in Ottawa, Anusha Shah in Bengaluru.

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“Our farmers are being hurt badly and we’re going to have to do something about that… We’re going to have an order on that pretty soon, I think,” Trump said at a White House event, adding that the order would address the hotels sector, too.

He did not say what changes the order would implement or when it would take effect. Representatives for the White House and Department of Homeland Security had no specific comment about the order, while representatives at the Department of Agriculture could not be immediately reached.

“We will follow the president’s direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.

Reliance on immigration

U.S. farm industry groups have long wanted Trump to spare their sector from mass deportations, which could upend a food supply chain dependent on immigrants.

Nearly half of the nation’s approximately 2 million farm workers and many dairy and meatpacking workers lack legal status, according to the departments of Labor and Agriculture.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told CNBC that Trump was reviewing all possible steps but that Congress would have to act.

Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, a leading farm lobby, said on Thursday that farm workers were key to the nation’s food supply.

“If these workers are not present in fields and barns, there is a risk of supply-chain disruptions similar to those experienced during the pandemic,” Duvall said in a statement.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in labor shortages and supply-chain snarls, with meat plants forced to idle and dairy farms to dump milk, and consumers encountering emptier shelves at grocery stores.

Trump acknowledges impacts

In recent days, demonstrations have been taking place in major U.S. cities to protest immigration raids.

Trump is carrying out his campaign promise to deport immigrants in the country illegally. But protesters and some Trump supporters have questioned the targeting of those who are not convicted criminals, including in places of employment such as those that sparked last week’s protests in Los Angeles.

On Thursday, Trump acknowledged the impact of the crackdown on sectors such as the hotel industry, which includes his company. The Trump Organization has said Trump’s adult sons are running his business.

“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” he wrote on his social media platform. “Changes are coming!”

Farmers have a legal option for hiring temporary or seasonal labor with the H-2A visa program, which allows employers to bring in seasonal workers if they can show there are not enough U.S. workers willing, qualified and available to do the job.

Rollins said Trump was “looking at every potential tool in the toolkit” and pointed to the length of the temporary H-2A visas.

The president understands that we can’t feed our nation or the world without that labor force, and he’s listening to the farmers on that,” she told CNBC.

—Reporting by Jeff Mason, Susan Heavey and P.J. Huffstutter; additional reporting by Bhargav Acharya, Aatreyee Dasgupta, Leah Douglas and Ted Hesson.

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In the wake of Tuesday’s sweep by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, livestock traders and market analysts expressed concerns that the potential deportation of undocumented workers from such raids could disrupt U.S. food production at a time when beef prices have soared and meat processors report a labor shortage.

ICE agents detained about 74 to 76 workers out of roughly 140 at the Glenn Valley Foods plant, President Chad Hartmann said. Other workers did not show up on Wednesday because they felt afraid or traumatized, he said, adding that the facility’s production dropped to about 20 per cent of normal.

Glenn Valley Foods sells steak, chicken and corned beef products to restaurants and grocery stores, according to its website.

Retail beef prices have set records as the size of the U.S. cattle herd has declined to its lowest level in 70 years after a years-long drought raised feed costs. Consumer demand for steaks and hamburgers has stayed strong nevertheless.

Glenn Valley Foods is trying to determine how long it will take to hire new employees, Hartmann said.

“The hole that got punched into our business is staffing,” he said.

Traders fear labour shortages

Livestock traders worried that immigration raids could slow meat companies’ demand to buy cattle from farmers to process into beef, if the companies do not have enough workers. Chicago Mercantile Exchange cattle futures came under pressure on Tuesday during the raid, after recently hitting records.

“There’s certainly going to be nervousness out there on where the labor situation goes, going forward,” said Matt Wiegand, a commodity broker for risk management firm FuturesOne in Nebraska.

Meatpackers still face an acute worker shortage, said Julie Anna Potts, president of the Meat Institute industry group. It worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, when major companies such as Tyson Foods temporarily shut plants because of a lack of workers.

Glenn Valley used E-Verify, a federal database used for checking employees’ immigration status. Hartmann said Homeland Security told him on Wednesday that there was no better system.

“We will have to continue to use it,” he said.

ICE alleges large-scale employment of illegal immigrants

ICE said a criminal investigation was ongoing into what immigration officials called a large-scale employment of immigrants who are present in the U.S. illegally.

Footage of the Glenn Valley raid released by ICE showed agents searching the plant, restraining workers’ hands and ankles, and taking them into custody.

ICE officers have been intensifying efforts in recent weeks to deliver on U.S. President Donald Trump’s agenda of record-level deportations.

Tensions boiled over in Los Angeles over the weekend when protesters took to the streets after ICE arrested migrants at Home Depot stores, a garment factory and a warehouse, according to rights advocates. On Tuesday night, demonstrators marched in New York, Atlanta and Chicago.

More than half of all meatpacking workers in the U.S. are immigrants, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a think tank.

The Omaha World-Herald newspaper said on Tuesday that raids were also reported at local plants run by large meatpackers Tyson and JBS USA. Tyson and JBS told Reuters their facilities were not raided.

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U.S. Congressman Don Bacon told local media 75-80 people were detained.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid happened at a plant of Glenn Valley Foods. The food packaging company said it was surprised by the raid and had followed the rules regarding immigration status.

Processor says it followed immigration rules

Chad Hartmann, president of Glenn Valley Foods in Omaha, said the plant that was raided used E-Verify, a federal database used for checking employees’ immigration status. He told Reuters that when he said this to a federal agent, the agent responded “the system is broken” and urged him to contact his local congressional representative.

ICE officers have been intensifying efforts in recent weeks to deliver on U.S. President Donald Trump’s promise of record-level deportations. The White House has demanded the agency sharply increase arrests of migrants in the U.S. illegally, sources have told Reuters.

Tensions boiled over in Los Angeles over the weekend when protesters took to the streets after ICE arrested migrants at Home Depot stores, a garment factory and a warehouse, according to migrant advocates.

Local police in Omaha said they were informed by immigration officials about the raid in advance while the company said it got no notice about the operation ahead of time.

Allegations of large-scale illegal employment

Hartmann said federal agents had a warrant that said they had identified 107 people who they believed were using fraudulent documents.

“This was the largest worksite enforcement operation in Nebraska under the Trump Administration,” the Homeland Security Department said on X, adding no law enforcement official was hurt.

ICE said a criminal investigation was ongoing into what immigration officials called a large-scale employment of immigrants who are present in the U.S. illegally.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and federal law enforcement partners, executed a federal search warrant at Glenn Valley Foods, today, based on an ongoing criminal investigation into the large-scale employment of aliens without authorization to work in the United States,” an ICE spokesperson told an ABC News affiliate.

More than half of all meatpacking workers in the U.S. are immigrants, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a think tank.

Rights advocates, including the ACLU of Nebraska, condemned the raid.

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Rising demand for such legal services reflects anxiety that Trump will follow through on a campaign vow to deport millions of undocumented immigrants once he is sworn in to office Jan. 20, something that could have an outsized impact on the country’s agricultural sector, which heavily relies on their labor.

About half of hired farmworkers nationwide lack legal immigration status, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and farm trade groups have warned deporting them could bring the country’s food production to a halt.

“The administration is not yet sworn in, but people are already afraid,” said Sarait Martinez, executive director of the Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño (CBDIO), an organization that supports indigenous Mexican farmworkers in the Central Valley of California.

Representatives of four U.S. rural and legal advocacy organizations, including CBDIO, told Reuters they have seen as much as a ten-fold increase in interest from immigrant farmworkers in workshops and resources they provide on what to do if confronted by immigration officials and how to ensure their family’s security if they are detained.

The workshops can include role-play confrontations with immigration officials and instructions on how to prepare for potential enforcement: like filling out forms assigning temporary guardians to their children, assigning an alternate to pick up pay, or giving permission for their children to travel internationally in the event they are deported.

Alfredo, a farmworker in Washington State who asked to be identified only by his first name due to concerns he could be targeted, said he is taking part in some of the trainings so he can pass along what he learns to fellow workers.

“We are definitely very concerned,” he told Reuters. “We really take pride in doing farm work, but it’s becoming very hard to look forward to going out to work.”

Against the clock

In his first administration from 2017-21, Trump’s government conducted worksite raids at poultry processing plants and produce processing facilities in Nebraska.

The incoming Trump administration has said it will prioritize the deportation of people in the country illegally who pose a public safety or national security threat, but has not ruled out extending deportations more broadly to undocumented farmworkers.

“President Trump will enlist every federal power and coordinate with state authorities to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers in American history while simultaneously lowering costs for families and strengthening our workforce,” said Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for the Trump administration transition team.

Farm industry trade groups are worried about the potential impact on food production, and especially in California.

A third of U.S. vegetables and three-quarters of fruits and nuts are produced in the state, along with huge quantities of dairy and livestock, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

All that food is harvested and processed by about 400,000 farmworkers, according to state employment data. And about 75 per cent of those are undocumented workers, according to the University of California-Merced Community and Labor Center.

Despite the high proportion of undocumented immigrants, there is little access to appropriate legal services for farmworkers in some of the state’s largest agricultural counties, said Ivette Chaidez Villarreal, civic engagement program director at Valley Voices, a workers’ rights and voter education group in the Central Valley.

Since November’s election, the organization has grown its work on immigration services due to a high volume of legal questions and requests from farmworkers. It is also working with other California groups to create a rapid response network to support workers who may be subject to raids, Villarreal said.

Farmworkers often struggle to access legal services because of their rural location, said Patricia Ortiz, immigration legal director at California Rural Legal Assistance, which is developing resources for farmworkers.

“It puts them in a more precarious situation than other workers,” she said.

Undocumented workers who have U.S.-born children are particularly worried about being separated from their families, said Martinez of CBDIO. About 4.4 million U.S.-born children live in a household with at least one unauthorized immigrant parent, according to the Pew Research Center.

Martinez said many of the workers her group is helping speak languages like Mixteco and Zapoteco, and not Spanish or English, and are seeking help with immigration paperwork and securing passports for their U.S.-born children.

Across the country in upstate New York, the Cornell Farmworker Program has increased its immigration workshops ten-fold since before the election, and expects to soon hold one every day, said director Mary Jo Dudley.

Using role-play, trainers show workers ways to respond to immigration officials if stopped on the street or approached at their homes, Dudley said.

“We’re working against the clock,” she said.

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So far Trump officials have not committed to any exemptions, according to interviews with farm and worker groups and Trump’s incoming “border czar” Tom Homan.

Nearly half of the nation’s approximately 2 million farm workers lack legal status, according to the departments of Labor and Agriculture, as well as many dairy and meatpacking workers.

Trump, a Republican, vowed to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally as part of his campaign to win back the White House, a logistically challenging undertaking that critics say could split apart families and disrupt U.S. businesses.

Homan has said immigration enforcement will focus on criminals and people with final deportation orders but that no immigrant in the U.S. illegally will be exempt.

He told Fox News on Nov. 11 that enforcement against businesses would “have to happen” but has not said whether the agricultural sector would be targeted.

“We’ve got a lot on our plate,” Homan said in a phone interview this month.

Mass removal of farm workers would shock the food supply chain and drive consumer grocery prices higher, said David Ortega, a professor of food economics and policy at Michigan State University.

“They’re filling critical roles that many U.S.-born workers are either unable or unwilling to perform,” Ortega said.

Farm groups and Republican allies are encouraged by the incoming administration’s stated focus on criminals.

Dave Puglia, president and CEO of Western Growers, which represents produce farmers, said the group supports that approach and is concerned about impacts to the farm sector if a deportation plan was targeted at farmworkers.

Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt did not directly address the farmer concerns in a statement to Reuters.

“The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail, like deporting migrant criminals and restoring our economic greatness,” Leavitt said. “He will deliver.”

Trump announced on Saturday that he would nominate Brooke Rollins, who chaired the White House Domestic Policy Council during his first term, to become agriculture secretary.

Agriculture and related industries contributed $1.5 trillion (C$2.1 trillion) to the U.S. gross domestic product, or 5.6 per cent, in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In his first administration, Trump promised the farm sector that his deportation effort would not target food sector workers, though the administration did conduct raids at some agricultural worksites, including poultry processing plants in Mississippi and produce processing facilities in Nebraska.

U.S. Representative John Duarte, a Republican and fourth-generation farmer in California’s Central Valley, said farms in the area depend on immigrants in the U.S. illegally and that small towns would collapse if those workers were deported.

Duarte’s congressional seat is one of a handful of close races where a winner has yet to be declared.

Duarte said the Trump administration should pledge that immigrant workers in the country for five years or longer with no criminal record will not be targeted and look at avenues to permanent legal status.

“I would like to hear more clearly expressed that these families will not be targeted,” he said.

‘We need the certainty’

Farmers have a legal option for hiring labor with the H-2A visa program, which allows employers to bring in an unlimited number of seasonal workers if they can show there are not enough U.S. workers willing, qualified and available to do the job.

The program has grown over time, with 378,000 H-2A positions certified by the Labor Department in 2023, three times more than in 2014, according to agency data.

But that figure is only about 20 per cent of the nation’s farm workers, according to the USDA. Many farmers say they cannot afford the visa’s wage and housing requirements. Others have year-round labor needs that rule out the seasonal visas.

Farmers and workers would benefit from expanded legal pathways for agricultural laborers, said John Walt Boatright, director of government affairs at the American Farm Bureau Federation, a farmer lobby group.

“We need the certainty, reliability and affordability of a workforce program and programs that are going to allow us to continue to deliver food from the farm to the table,” said John Hollay, director of government relations at the International Fresh Produce Association, which represents produce farmers.

For decades, farm and worker groups have attempted to pass immigration reform that would enable more agricultural workers to stay in the U.S., but the legislation has failed so far.

The risk of enforcement against farms is likely low because of the necessity of the workers, said Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney at Holland & Knight.

“There are some very significant business interests that obviously want agricultural labor and need it,” he said.

But for farmworkers, the fear of enforcement can create chronic stress, said Mary Jo Dudley, director of the Cornell Farmworker Program, which is training workers to know their rights if confronted by immigration officials.

If there are again raids on meatpacking plants, immigration enforcement should take precautions to avoid detaining workers in the country legally, said Marc Perrone, international president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents some meatpacking workers.

Edgar Franks, a former farmworker and political director at Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a worker union in Washington state, said the group is seeing new energy from workers to organize.

“The anxiety and fear is real. But if we’re together, there’s a better chance for us to fight back,” he said.

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According to a report from Global News, Miller said employers may need to start offering higher wages to Canadian workers while speaking to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade Wednesday.

The comments come following several recently-announced reforms to the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program by the federal government. Recent rules limit the number of TFWs employers may hire in areas with low unemployment and last week, a 20 per cent increase to hourly wage for TFWs came into effect.

Per the Global news report, Miller specifically pointed to agriculture as a low-wage sector in which “there are exploitative relationships that exist.”

More reductions and limits on the TFW program would likely mean more pressure on Canadian producers to hire local labour.

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Last week, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced a plan to cut the number of temporary residents in Canada to curb population growth from 2025 to 2027.

“Canada’s temporary population will decrease over the next few years as significantly more temporary residents will transition to being permanent residents or leave Canada compared to new ones arriving,” the feds say.

“(This) is expected to result in a marginal population decline of 0.2 percent in both 2025 and 2026, before returning to a population growth of 0.8 percent in 2027.”

Some business groups are concerned about this policy and the availability of workers, but it isn’t a threat for agri-food processors, said Lauren Martin, senior director of government relations and policy with the meat council.

“Peeling back the layers… there were no new measures announced,” she said. “There wasn’t anything new for agri-food.”

In March, the federal government adjusted the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, reducing the maximum number of TFWs that a business could employ from 30 to 20 per cent of their staff.

In August, the feds went a step further, capping the number of foreign workers at 10 per cent.

Health care, construction and the agri-food industry were exempt from the August reduction to 10 per cent.

The policy change in March was disruptive for meat packers across Canada, which rely heavily on foreign workers, Martin said.

The meat industry has since adjusted to the TFW cap.

“Where we were in the spring is not where we are today…. I think there is less panic, now.”

It’s also encouraging that the tone of conversations has shifted in Ottawa, Martin said.

Federal ministers and bureaucrats seem to understand that agriculture and agri-food needs a consistent supply of foreign workers.

“I think I’ve received enough of an assurance, from different departments, that agri-food is going to be a bit of a (protected) workforce,” Martin said.

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture is still reviewing the recent change in immigration policy, but it appears the government comprehends that many farms cannot survive without foreign workers.

Fruit and vegetable growers, pork producers, beekeepers and other producers need foreign labour.

“What’s most important is that government (has) recognized the importance of the TFW program … to agriculture, and how we rely on that program,” said Keith Currie, CFA president and a farmer from Collingwood, Ont.

“They’ve left us alone, basically. They made an exemption for us.”

Despite the use of foreign labour, it’s possible that 30,000 positions remain vacant on Canadian farms, Currie said.

The Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council has estimated that on-farm agriculture businesses lost $3.5 billion in sales in 2022 because they didn’t have the necessary workforce.

“If we didn’t not have the 70,000 seasonal ag workers that are coming in … what would that look like for a production standpoint?” Currie said. “Particularly in the (horticultural) industry, where the majority of (foreign) workers go, it would be devastating.”

In its Oct. 24 announcement, the immigration department said it wants more temporary residents — workers and students — to become permanent residents of Canada.

That policy could be helpful for agri-food processors such as meat packers, which employ workers throughout the year.

Companies use the TFW program to attract workers to Canada with the goal of keeping those employees in the country for the long haul.

“If they want more permanent residents that are going to fill the jobs that food and beverage manufacturing industry has, then yes, that’s a good thing,” said Martin, who added that immigration policy is extremely complicated.

The government has decided to limit the number of temporary residents in Canada — workers and students — which will constrain population growth.

It’s unclear what this will mean for the economy, including agriculture and food.

“Canada has a demographic problem. We do not have the folks we need to replace (the people) who are retiring,” Martin said.

“If you’re reducing immigration numbers … what are you going to do to productivity and output?”

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