Mike Ferragina recoiled as he watched a video of a Niagara grower tossing out Easter lily after Easter lily when a disrupted economy shut down the pipeline to sales in April.
Ferragina and his mom, Donna, grow herb bedding plants and flowers in the Holland Marsh, but their season gets going in January with seeding inside greenhouses months ahead of the vegetable farmers sowing those wide fields straddling Highway 400 near Bradford.
Early on as COVID-19 developed into a serious concern and then a pandemic, the growers struggled with what they should do.
The Ferraginas were fortunate, though. Because of their early growing season, they were able to get six of the seven of their regular work crew from Mexico, most arriving before restrictions were implemented. The seventh was ill and unable to travel.
Access to labour has been a perennial problem for Canada’s farmers who have come to rely on migrant workers to help seed and harvest. Typically, 60,000 foreign workers from countries like Mexico, Jamaica and Guatemala come to Canada each year to work at farms.
Those who did manage to get to Canada after the federal and provincial governments declared states of emergency this year have had to remain in isolation for two weeks prior to working on Canadian farms.
But there have been delays in the countries of origin where visa offices have been largely shuttered. As a result, fewer are arriving in Canada and that’s become a serious concern as growers struggle to seed their land in time.
In addition, several migrant workers have become ill with COVID-19 while working on southern Ontario farms and there have been two deaths.
On Tuesday, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit reported that three workers on one farm have tested positive for the virus.
And while the farm is in Simcoe County, the workers are not from this area. Officials say they are investigating the situation and don’t yet know the country of origin of the workers.
“The biggest impact for us at that point was probably stress,” said Mike Ferragina, explaining that the emergency declaration resulting from the health crisis added a serious element of risk to farmers’ investments because the viability of the entire supply chain was in question. “We have hundreds of thousands of plants sitting in the greenhouses — our outlets, our retailers, our garden centres are closed.”
Like other farmers, the Ferraginas decided to cut back on their volume, knowing that their profits would take a hit, but they didn’t want to take a chance of growing to capacity and be stuck with their product if they couldn’t get it all to market.
Suddenly, with two days’ notice last month, the retailers were given the OK to go ahead.
Ferragina said the toilet paper mentality then took hold and plants, particularly vegetables, cleared off the shelves.
“This year was the biggest shortage of plants probably ever. There are garden centres that are already closed for the year,” he said. “You can’t get product, there are no plants to buy.
“I believed that the demand was going to be there, the demand would always be there. The problem was the logistics of getting it from grower to retailer to consumer. That chain was so disrupted.”
While Barrie Hill Farms is also reporting a year much different than all the others, it is largely a destination operation and doesn’t rely so heavily on the supply chain.
At its reconfigured operations, this year there are no crowds piling onto the wagon to head out into the asparagus and strawberry fields or masses of people shopping in the market, yet business is brisk, reports owner Morris Gervais.
“Sales are up and visits to the farm are up,” said Gervais, whose father started the popular pick-your-own-berry farm northwest of Barrie, having converted it from a tobacco-growing operation in the 1970s. “We’re really glad and thankful for the support the community has given us.”
Early on Gervais turned his attention to the website to communicate the changes in operation, providing updates on what’s happening at the farm market and with the picking plans. It now boasts Barrie Hill has “the world’s first asparagus drive-thru.”
The drive-thru was created by connecting existing driveways which allow drivers to loop in alongside the market where employees can pop orders right into the trunk of the car.
Inside the reconfigured market a one-way passage discourages people from walking past each other and hand sanitizing stations are located at both ends.
Gervais was able to also employ 23 migrant workers from Mexico, down from the 30 who usually work there. And most are returning workers who are familiar with the operations.
“Overall, that’s not too bad,” said Gervais.
In addition, many high school and post-secondary students have returned for the summer, rounding out the farm’s complement of seasonal workers.
Gervais said it was a challenge implementing all the new procedures in light of the health pandemic, in addition to dealing with the regular rush of running a seasonal business. Consultations through the berry growers’ association allowed the sharing of best practises. Gervais was also on a Zoom call with other growers last week, which included farmers from North Carolina who shared their early experiences.
All this means increased costs. But the community has shown that it’s interested in buying local, he said.
“Overall, I feel very fortunate to be in the food business,” he said.
The next stage is to implement a procedure for the best pick-your-own approach. It will start with a different parking area and wagon rides out to the field are definitely out. The farm is also encouraging that families send fewer representatives and not bring along the entire unit this year.
And instead of weighing the berries, customers will be given baskets and purchase by volume. Before going out into the field customers will be asked to complete a short COVID declaration and sanitize their hands.
Gervais has found the biggest challenge has been re-evaluating every aspect of how things are normally done to ensure everyone’s safety.
Farms across the country are facing challenges and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture is pushing for more help from the federal government. But at the end of the day, said president Keith Currie, Canadians will not suffer a food shortage.
“We’re an export nation,” said the Collingwood-area farmer. “We will still have food. There’s maybe going to be a lot less selection in products and you’re certainly going to see, already seeing, an increase in the prices.”
A big concern continues to be labour, which automation can never fully replace on farms. Farmers are challenged to get domestic help and say this year they’re also competing with the federal government emergency benefit programs.
While migrant workers continue to make their way to Canadian farms, Currie expects the total number to fall far short of the regular complement.
Back in the Marsh, Ferragina is approaching the latter part of his season while other farmers are just getting going. And he’s seeing the advantage the smaller farmers have this year over the larger ones that are so reliant upon dozens or hundreds of migrant workers and a solid supply chain.
But he’s also thankful that timing didn’t work entirely against him.
“In the midst of them shutting down the province, we were witnessing first-hand what the consequences could be with the early spring and Easter crop,” he said, referring to the growers dumping the lilies
“You see that and think — mine are next,” he said. “Had the restrictions not been let up, had Canadians not been so good at self-isolation and keeping their friends and families and neighbours safe, things could have been much worse than they were.”
